by Jade Winings (@jadewinings)
Power trio Lady Pills struck the music community with their 2022 album release, What I Want. The meanings behind the album title are defined by the record’s theme of no longer wearing rose-tinted glasses and the layers of disgust the realization brings. What I Want is a relatable album in regards to its depth of honest expression of emotion and coming to clarity within knowing what you want after regaining confidence in remembering who you are.
The album highlights folky, Regina Spektor-esque, vocal harmonies with clever lyrics sung in confidence. What I Want holds an impressive instrumental dynamic, giving understanding through feeling what the writer is feeling. The record entails breakup songs with relatable self deprecating thoughts that feeling terribly insecure typically bring, even without a breakup.
Tracks such as "What I Want" represent the range of emotion you experience when realizing how awful you feel with the person you are deeply romantically bound to. The song creates imagery in realizing in-the-moment how ugly your situation is as you watch the person you love reveal themselves as someone who feeds off of your love in return for their self-suffering complaints. This person transforms your sweetness into bitterness, and it has finally been brought to light. Similar track, "The Conditions," portrays the situation of being rewarded for "good behavior" in exchange for dulling your own light for someone else to feel more comfortable in loving you, leading into the track "Mundane"'s exhaustion of normalizing the toxicity each day brings being with a lover you have low expectations for.
The album ends with “Family,” a warmer and charming track. "Family" is an extremely fitting track to end the album due to the trend of traumatic events reminding us of the healing comfort of a family's love, you are promised to always be nurtured and safe inside. Lady Pills is to be favored for their unique sound and painful metaphors, they are certainly a group to keep your listening-ears on for.