After applying various spartan approaches on her different albums, singer/songwriter
Sarah Mary Chadwick took a sharp left turn into ornate arrangements on her 2020 album
Please Daddy. Even augmented by chamber pop flutes, airy soft rock instrumentation, and the occasional triumphant horn arrangement,
Chadwick's songs of pain, sex, and betrayal were still anything but uplifting, instead pushing even further into the emotionally turbulent territory she'd explored in more stripped-down forms on earlier albums.
Me and Ennui Are Friends Baby finds
Chadwick returning to just piano and vocals, leaving no place to hide for the crushing sadness that flows through every song. As bleak as the album can get, the empty arrangements are the perfect backdrop for
Chadwick's bottomless depressive outpourings. "Every Loser Needs a Mother" spins through a Rolodex of unlikeable characters and reflects all the disgust inward,
Chadwick accessing her self-destructive behavior with
Bright Eyes' levels of anguish. It's oddly catchy for a song so brutal, and this synthesis of melody and misery comes to define the album. "Full Mood" is softly aching and tuneful,
Chadwick's voice brittle but confident as she sways between two chord verses and images of woozy nightlife scenes and all-consuming infatuation. "Don't Like You Talking" is just as spare, but uses double-tracked vocals in a sluggish, frowning melody line that drags itself through the lyrics of jealousy and self-doubt.
Me and Ennui Are Friends Baby isn't an easy listen, but it's a captivatingly beautiful bummer that ranks with the darkest, drunkest, most flailing moments of
Leonard Cohen,
Cat Power, and other perpetually sad-hearted songwriters.
Chadwick is unafraid to dive to whatever depths of pain and unhidden vulnerability she can fathom on these songs, not necessarily looking for a way through the heavy times as much as striving to portray them as completely as possible. ~ Fred Thomas