by Jasmine Bourgeois
Unexpected Guest is the debut full-length from Boston-based singer/song-writer Gia Greene. Though some of the songs have been released previously on her EP (also titled Unexpected Guest), her new album is full of new material and freshly re-recorded older tracks have a more fine-tuned feel.
The title track, "Unexpected Guest," is one of the newly renovated tracks coming off the new album. Anyone who’s already familiar with Gia Greene will recognize the dissonant vibes and melody, but this time around Greene upped the energy. The song’s lo-fi bedroom charm is still there, but the addition of a drum track and more distorted, electrified guitar riffs give it a more calculated feel. There’s something about this track that energizes a room differently than the last. It feels more tangible. The chorus rings: “Sitting on the sidelines watching people dancing and it's starting to make me sad/why won't they dance with me?/is it cause I'm not pretty?” The lyrics are the same simple, poignant ones we’ve heard before, but the amplified instrumentals make it feel alive. Her poeticism perfectly captures young angsty feelings of insecurity and confusion, and the music’s energy gives it a corporeal feel.
Most of us have been a wallflower at one point or another. There aren’t always ways to word the sting of feeling isolated in a crowded room, but Greene seems to translate it with lyrical ease. "Unexpected Guest" isn’t afraid to be vulnerable. Greene chews on despondency without choking on it, creating a familiar anthem for all of us who have been the odd one out. Though the track plays with feelings of isolation and awkwardness, it beams with a certain buoyancy — one that’s coming to feel uniquely that of Gia Greene.
Gia will be playing this song and more at her record release show set for Saturday, March 31st at the Lilypad in Cambridge, MA.