7 Samia: Honey

I’ve never been this bad, can I tell you something?
I’ve never felt so unworthy of loving
I hope you marry the girl from your hometown
And I’ll fucking kill her, and I’ll fucking freak out

Kill Her Freak Out

Mate, this album just fucks, I don’t know what to tell you. It fucks hard.

The reason that music stands out from all other art is because at its best it strikes the listener almost exclusively in the emotional centre. I’m not saying that you can’t enjoy music rationally – I would suggest there might have been a few albums on this list already that I chiefly enjoyed rationally, and I would argue that there are many critically adored musical artists whose art is far more admired rationally than it is enjoyed emotionally – just that often that ‘rationality’ is applied to explain (to other people, to yourself) music that your subconscious has already decided that you like. And that’s great! That’s what I’m doing on this blog! If I’m doing it it has to be a noble pursuit! But music still inspires reactions deep within us that we can’t explain, it’s ingrained within us from birth. Like we come out of our momma’s fannies already scared of spiders and snakes (like little fucking babies), we slide through that beat canal getting down to this. Sick. Beat. Yeah, I know, you’re not afraid of spiders or snakes anymore – because you’re a big boy – because just because these things are ingrained doesn’t mean they’re not deniable. You ever met one of those people who says they don’t listen to music?? Like, at all?? Not even the odd Fleetwood Mac album in the car?? Do you know what that proves? Child abuse.

Mind you, if you’re an adult who’s still really afraid of snakes and/or spiders, that’s probably because your parents didn’t do enough to dissuade you from it. So also child abuse. Unless you’re Australian of course, I get how it’s a fucking killing fields down there. You’re a ridiculous race of people.

‘Honey’ is Samia’s second album and it fucks hard. Did I already say that?

Rationally, it’s 11 tracks of simply pristine pop songs delivered with a confidence and a swaggering, self-depreciating sense of humour that edge them closer to undeniable. What makes them undeniable though – what pushes them over into ‘seventh best album of the year; territory’ – is that great, emotional undefinable.

I think (I think. I THINK!) it’s Samia themselves. The way that they manage to inhibit and to deliver these songs is pretty damn goated. Their voice, while not technically dropping any jaws nor blowing any minds, manages to catch the sweet spot of tired, humorous irony while also managing to sound absolutely heartfelt and absolutely heartbroken. They are so me fr. The lyrics are often just brilliant on their own terms. Samia can outline and sadly critique worldwide relationship and self-actualising issues, but then also zoom in with a whiplash to the minute details that are more difficult to directly relate to but easy to delight in. Dark humour and toxic relationships? Samia’s got you covered, bruv. “I’d be so afraid of what your daddy’d say/I could fetishize you for the whole damn day“; ”Your mom keeps threatening suicide on holidays/Your sister’s in LA making dinner with fresh produce”; “Screaming, “Porn kills love”/Outside your window with the Adventists/I know it’s wrong/Can’t remember how I got like this/You said when I come on the radio/It makes you wanna die/Well, if I shut up Can I come inside?“. But more central to the power of the album is how Samia, with the surrounding musical backing, able to make lines of near nothing just sound and feel like the most important and most gladly received gut punch imaginable. The way “You ever wish you weren’t a coward?” slides into Mad at Me just destroys me. The line “I’ll remember it June, 7PM” ends up, somehow, being the central highlight of Sea Lions. The second verse of the title track opening with the silly “I wanna go to the beach and die on the beach/I wanna be a mermaid” somehow has you punching the air. And, my personal favourite line from album highlight Amelia, “Oh my god there’s nothing quite like doing/What you came to do“. That line’s nothing. But it’s everything to me.

And yeah, she’s another nepo baby, but go to my Olivia Rodrigo or Lauren Auder reviews if you want me to explain why Samia themselves shouldn’t be blamed for systematic failures, and how their talent at the end of the day needs no justification. ‘Honey’ lives in my heart and soul, motherfuckers. Try and rationalise that, you egg sucking dogs.

Metacritic: 81

Legit Bosses: 3

Also, I’d been in love with the album for months before I saw the Mad At Me video and realised with horror that Samia was really hot. I don’t know what to do with that information.