Gracie Abrams is no stranger to criticism. Her debut album Good Riddance was simultaneously praised for its raw, evocative writing style and criticized for a whispery and subdued vocal delivery. Critics praised Abrams’ second record, The Secret of Us, for chatty, relatable songs and a shift towards anthemic pop sensibilities, while also panning for disjointed production across the record and failing to establish a clear and unique perspective.
In spite of the mixed reception, Gracie exploded due to the (in retrospect, unsurprising) success of the The Secret of Us Deluxe single “That’s So True” and a genuine Taylor Swift feature on “us,” both propelled by opening for The Eras Tour. Under the spotlight, audiences witnessed Abrams’ transformation from a diffident newbie to a grounded and charming performer. It is undeniable she has her finger on the pulse of the feelings and lived experiences of many 20-something adults.
This brings us to her third studio album, Daughter from Hell, first formally introduced to the public with lead single “Hit the Wall.” Daughter from Hell simultaneously contains her best work to date while exhibiting the same criticisms that she has previously received. The result is a very authentically Abrams record that showcases a deepening of her artistry in some areas while also highlighting the need for artistic growth. Daughter from Hell is far from a bad record, but it could’ve been a great one. And in a positive way, it sets a clear future path that Gracie is sure to follow in the coming years, one that I am sure will delight many.
On Daughter from Hell, Gracie Abrams grapples with her personal demons while questioning whether she deserves love from friends, family, and muses. The wailing synth-pop lead single and album opener “Hit the Wall,” discusses Abrams’ frustration with her mental health and self-destructive behavior. She sings:
I try to be violent, but I get caught
A room full of doctors and an inkblot
I’m drawn into headlights, have a blind spot
Pull over and wait for too long
I wanna be stable, but I do cave
I used when I’m able, I downgrade
I barely deserve it, if you do stay
I wish you would anyway
A defining highlight of “Hit the Wall” is the transition between the third verse and bridge, where Abrams breaks free of her whispery vocal past and truly lets loose. Main producer Aaron Dessner does a lovely job making “Hit the Wall” sound twinkly and thumping. It was a delicious introduction to Daughter from Hell that promised an energetic deep dive into a troubling past.
Another banger of notable quality is the second single, “Look At My Life.” Produced by Dan Nigro of Olivia Rodrigo and Chappell Roan acclaim, it contains his characteristic relentless touch (a touch I would love to see in Gracie’s work in the future). Over throbbing strings, synths, and percussion, Gracie belts out how she seems fine, is actually silently suffering without anyone to witness it. She’s intimidated by the fact that she got exactly what she wanted—fame and attention—and the result is isolation, consolation in vice, and imposter syndrome.
How long have I got in the hot light ’til the shine rusts?
I’ve been thinkin’ through the hard stuff
Over light drugs like every night
No, you don’t need to come over
‘Cause I’d crowd please, and I’m tired
Slowly morphed into a poser
Barely know her anymore
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
But, oh well, look at my life
Bet you can’t tell, but it’s kind of a bad time
A new spiral every night
Bawlin’ my eyes out, no, but I’m so fine
You would think with all of this major pop production from the first two singles that Daughter from Hell would be a dramatic and restless album. The title suggests a chaotic and rebellious nature, perhaps a twenty-something’s take on the famous tortured poet. This would be incorrect. Much like Good Riddance and entirely like The Secret of Us before it, Daughter from Hell contains a sprinkling of pop bangers but is mostly packed with introspective ballads. This makes the record feel both fragmental and derivative, even if the sonic palette creates a pleasing listen. Abrams has done this before.
A few songs, such as “The Knife” and “Men Like You,” straddle the line between banger and ballad, largely to great success. And then there’s “What If It’s Right?,” a near-country ditty that only reinforces Daughter from Hell’s identity crisis. It’s not bad song in the slightest, but the switch in production was jolting. An album should not sound like a mixtape. What is the sound of Daughter from Hell? It’s hard to say.
It helps that many of those introspective ballads are among her best. “Good Reason” is a delightful listen, “Mews” brought me to tears the first time I heard it, and “Afflictions” flips its downer of a title to showcase how Gracie is now sick with a good, honest love for once.
“Humming” one of Gracie’s best ballads yet, with excellent writing and a great vocal performance (it even earned an endorsement from the talented Lorde). Over a plucky guitar and soft, high-pitched piano, Gracie grapples with instability and corruption in the world, lamenting that those in power, those who should be the best and most responsible of us, are self-serving and careless. She sets the scene with a seemingly pleasant fantasy: a fall that is just warm enough to enjoy, a lover who indulges with her in the harmless vice or two, and a pure kiss. Then she shatters the fake dream and references the devastating LA wildfires from a few years ago:
Every kid I grew up with has lost their childhood house
No way to make sense of it
It’s why I’m making sound
Let me wake up from this horrible dream
Where what feels true is nothing
And there’s no one at the top to believe
What a way to feel in your 20s
Gracie doesn’t leave the listener without a hopeful thought, however. “Humming” looks out on a problematic world and vows to make sense of it all through sound. It is a touching and poignant testament to the power of music to encourage others and make life meaningful.
Unfortunately, there are plenty of other ballads to drag the flow of the album down. Some listeners may find the middle and ending of Daughter from Hell a genuine slog to get through with only the perfect-yet-too-short Audrey Hobert co-write “Minibar” to alleviate its languid pace.
Abrams’ writing occasionally lacks specificity, leaving some songs feeling vague and ambiguous in ways that often muddle the theme or message she’s trying to convey. She also heavily relies on cliches, which would normally not be a songwriting sin, but they work best when there is a real depth or thesis to hang them from. This songwriting choice allows a willing audience to project their own experiences into the songs but doesn’t always result in good art. Vague lyrics plague Daughter from Hell enough that it took a few too many listens for me to grasp an overall theme as a throughline.
For example, on “Men Like You,” she snarls “How dare you make me choose / Between myself and shallow.” On an overall standout track, this is a jarring choice of words that fails to communicate something substantive. It’s relatable, but not that deep. “Imaginary Friend” (written with actor boyfriend Paul Mescal) is another good example of Abrams’ lyrical blunders. The track discusses the grief of holding onto extremely painful memories of someone you love and are no longer in contact with. The chorus is so frustratingly stilted and abstract that you’d be forgiven for failing to fathom this from the lyrics.
Another disappointment is the closing track, “Cold Goodbyes.” It’s a weird track where Gracie icily creeps and seethes through imposter syndrome and catastrophizing. Some lines are very interesting and well-written. My favorite is “In the hay, I am the needle / There’s a hundred blinking eyes / Proving cities are for lonely deer in headlights.” That is a very compelling way to frame your loneliness. But then you have verses like:
And you don’t mean to bother
But there’s something on my face
It’s the subtlest expression
I should change it just in case
The questioning starts coming
In half-hearted show of faith
Now the aliens are asking if I’m okay
There’s something there that becomes clear on relistens, but it’s difficult to understand what she’s saying at face value. Who is “you?” What is “something on [her] face?” Is it resentment, fear, fury, or regret? Why are there aliens? There isn’t enough detail to know. It does not help that the production barely has a pulse. The song’s thematic material calls for a brooding, atmospheric soundscape to underscore the piercing melancholy of the lyrics, yet the plane never leaves the ground.
In sum, Daughter from Hell feels like “wack-a-mole,” as YouTube critic Eljohn Macaranas put it (Macaranas, 2026). If a good song is composed of 3 essential elements—good vocals, good writing, and good production—almost every song on Daughter from Hell hits only two of those requirements (at best), and very few hit all three. Perhaps the clearest example of this problem is, ironically, the title track. Aaron Dessner builds the song around a rocky guitar strum that itches my brain in a delightfully grungy way. Gracie sings her best here. But then you hear the lyrics, and the song stumbles:
I want your color
I want you knowing
I want your mirror
And I wanna say
How much I owe ya
I’ve loved your shoulder
I want your patience
I want your grace
I want your sugar
I wanna say
How much I owe ya
I’ve loved your shoulder
For a song intended to be an apology to your mother for being a hellion in your teenage years, there is a baffling lack of detail and complexity. What made Gracie a daughter from hell? What does it mean to want someone’s color, their knowing, their mirror, their sugar? It’s hard to say on an initial listen. The song reads like an attempt at poetry by someone who doesn’t understand that contextless phrases don’t make something sound poetic, an issue that scattered throughout the whole record.
If you haven’t figured it out already, many of these complaints are not new to Gracie’s work. Good Riddance and The Secret of Us experienced nearly the same criticisms. In many ways, Daughter from Hell is a predictable iteration of those albums. It indulges in the best and worst of each. Is it an improvement in many ways? Absolutely. But that only highlights the continued issues that Abrams is failing to address.
To me, it is clear that Abrams’ collaboration with Aaron Dessner has reached its beautiful yet flawed conclusion. Between the three albums Gracie and Aaron have worked on together, they have created many excellent songs that fans and I cherish. But there is little room left to grow. Aaron rarely challenges those who employ him on their writing and production preferences. Gracie needs someone who recognizes her potential while providing structure and challenging her to dig deeper, write even better, and perform fearlessly.
There is hope already. Before Gracie released Daughter from Hell, she played several tracks for her fans during The Secret of Us Tour, all of them sparsely produced ballads, or so we thought. One of those songs was “Out of Nowhere,” a track that many fans (including me) were incredibly disappointed didn’t make it onto the standard edition of the record. Days after release, Gracie made the tracks temporarily available on iTunes for purchase, and I suspect they will become deluxe tracks for Daughter from Hell.
Imagine my surprise to find out “Out of Nowhere” was actually a fully pop track produced by Jim-E-Stack, who most recently crafted Lorde’s acclaimed album Virgin and Olivia Rodrigo’s you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love track “purple.” Both are brilliantly written, performed, and produced, and “Out of Nowhere” more adjacent to that legacy than Gracie’s typical fare. Resultingly, it is the best song from Daughter from Hell, featuring incredible energy, dynamism, and momentum. I love how cathartic it feels and how it builds to a crescendo that never fails to give me chills. Gracie sounds angelic. The lyrics are clever and understandable, but complex and intriguing in a way that makes you want to queue up “Out of Nowhere” again and again. Everything aligns perfectly.
Hold me up against the wall
Crawl into my open jaw
Firing parietal, chemical, uppercut
Everyone’s watching us
Bite my lip for fun
I’ll live under your shirt
Punch-drunk, unpredictable
Leaving, but you should come
Everyone’s watching us
Gracie Abram’s promising future is bright. She has the talent and the connections to create something truly magnificent. She has received the constructive criticism she needs. And while Daughter from Hell is a good record, I am waiting with bated breath for her full potential to be realized.
Daughter from Hell is rated a (7/10).
Jack Kaempfer’s Counterpoint:
Where do I start? From my initial 4am listen—which should be the perfect time for an angsty record—my primary feeling about Daughter from Hell has been disappointment. Many of the songs are regressions in both songwriting and production. The lead single, though not perfect, was very intriguing and ultimately a bit of a red herring for the vibe of this album. Abrams falls into the classic trap of mistaking earnest songwriting for good songwriting. She sings half-baked phrases and lines leaning on cliché with great conviction, as if they’re earth-shattering revelations. And maybe they would be if the album succeeded in communicating much depth or specificity regarding the experiences it details. Nevertheless, Daughter from Hell has grown on me a bit with repeat listens, especially after I created a playlist paring down the tracklist. “Humming,” “Men Like You,” “Hit the Wall,” and “Death Wish” are worth checking out. The record has a lot of potential that could have been realized with more drafting and perhaps a different producer. Additionally, I struggle to see much of a storyline for the album other than “angsty girl sings random sad songs about her life.” It should have been called Daughter from Hell? given all the confusion it leaves the listener with.
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References:
Macaranas, E. [Eljohn Macaranas]. (2026, July 20). Gracie’s “Daughter From Hell’s” biggest sin is being boring [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGkHpOatTCY
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