Really leaning into her whole “whisper pop” classification, the third album from Gracie Abrams, Daughter From Hell, finds the famed nepo baby quietly (like, literally—her vocals are whisper-y as fuck) addressing, in a nutshell, more of the same. Except that, this time around, she peppers her lyrics with plenty of allusions to fame and fame anxiety-specific lyrics. And that starts immediately with the album’s first track (and lead single), “Hit the Wall.” A song whose strength can be misleading since the rest of the album often fails to capture that same benchmark.
In any case, “Hit the Wall” is the immediate thesis statement of the record (and not, as one would think, the title track). For it finds Abrams insisting, “I’m not a problem you can solve” as she probes the depths of mental health imagery (since, as Nick Reiner might tell you during a coherent moment, being the child of famous parents can evidently really fuck you up). This includes such lines as, “A room full of doctors and an inkblot/I’m drawn into headlights, have a blind spot” and “I wanna be stable, but I do cave/I use when I’m able, I downgrade.” Such highfalutin references to being hospitalized and taking medications seem to be in keeping with Abrams’ escalating assurance of late that, just because she grew up in a setting of privilege, it doesn’t mean she’s not “unhinged and stuff.” But her lyrical claims of being unhinged to the extent of mental hospitalization are perhaps in poor taste. Especially if Britney Spears—someone who actually went through the wringer in this regard—ever heard such a claim (though one doesn’t get the sense that Spears is an Abrams listener).
Pivoting back to her more tried-and-true subject matter—dickish men (hence, being elevated to “Taylor Swift status”)—“Death Wish” is the track that follows. And it’s a song Abrams debuted all the way back in March of 2025 at London’s O2 arena when she was still on her The Secret of Us Tour. So clearly, she must have strong feelings about it to have shared it so far in advance from Daughter From Hell’s release. Though, incidentally, the song isn’t even about her own particular experience with a narcissist, but rather, a friend’s. At least that’s what she said before premiering the track live, prefacing it with the backstory, “This song is about a friend of mine who recently was dating, like, a mega narcissist… A sincere friend of mine was recently dating someone who kind of sucked. And I was listening to them talk about it a lot, and so this song is about that!”
Some might call this reaction a selfless, protective act, while others might see it as a classic case of narcissism of its own variety, with musicians/writers taking inspiration from other people’s lives for their work. So, in this scenario, the Lorde lyrics from “Writer in the Dark” that go, “Bet you rue the day you kissed a writer in the dark” should be slightly altered to, “Bet you rue the day you kissed a writer’s friend in the dark.” For Abrams goes for the jugular throughout this song, despite its start with some jaunty guitar strings that establish the mid-tempo pacing of it. After all, Abrams wants to take a bit of time with her insults. Ones that include, “Your words to kill are evergreen/So you must not feel anything at all” and, toward the end (when she finally wields the title of the song), “And I used to pretend that it didn’t feel evil/Your light of a million suns burns through people/And bridges and cities till ash covers ground/A breath of your air is a death wish.”
When she bursts into the chorus around the one-minute-four-second mark, there’s no denying that the intonation and tone shifts to one reminiscent of the chorus from “Us,” her Taylor Swift-featuring track from The Secret of Us. But her “Death Wish” chorus doesn’t have any traces of the yearning and burning from the latter as she commands, “How will it end? How long will you give me?/Till you twist the knife with a smile while you kill me?” Twisting “The Knife” indeed. But only because he did it first.
In any case, “The Knife” just so happens to be the next song (though it’s unfortunately not an homage to the band of the same name), and is noticeably more piano-laden. And this is where the album already starts to show signs of fizzling out, dropping off, etc. Even as Abrams continues to deliver on her patent “songwriting skills” with an opening that pronounces, “I’m living with a knife in my side/I’m gonna take it for a joy ride.” That knife was given to her, as she soon describes, by a cruel lover who left as soon he stabbed her with it (metaphorically speaking, of course). And now, she’s stuck with this “sorry curse/And they’re daring me to pull it out/I’ll probably keep it for a lifetime/I’ll probably name it/Then care for it and claim it/That’s how it works/When you go ruin my life.” Though it’s difficult to imagine who Abrams could be referring to considering she’s in a “healthy relationship” with Paul Mescal, which is how she described it in a 2025 article for Cosmopolitan, noting, “What I love about a healthy relationship is that your life doesn’t radically change. You fit into each other in a way that feels positively challenging and deeply supportive—it’s like a place to land. My current form of love feels like home no matter where I am.”
So maybe she’s drawing on her previous long-term relationship with producer Blake Slatkin when she says, “I’ll, I’ll probably feel you till I die/But I’ll never face you or ever replace you.” This sentiment, rather than a Taylor Swift vibe, has more of a Lana Del Rey one, particularly from her Born to Die era. And maybe she was also trying to channel that with the “I am fucking crazy” aura of, “I’ll go out of my mind/Banging my cage and crossing the line.” Once again insisting she’s some kind of “Sylvia Plath type” (which has also sort of been Del Rey’s thing for a while). Though it’s pretty clear Abrams isn’t the suicide attempt kind, as emphasized by her assurance, “I’m all bark, never would bite.”
As the song comes to a close, Abrams makes sure to evoke her album cover and title with the verse, “I’ve gone out of my mind pouring my case of kerosene/I’ll be burning this down but keeping your knife.” And yes, Daughter From Hell has an album cover that makes Abrams look like she’s taking a shit as she seemingly ignites something with a devilish look in her eye. The intent clearly being to channel something “witchy” (ergo, the “songwriting journal” she posted to her social media a while back that proudly displayed a sticker with a witch on it that also read, what else, “Witch”). Alas, Abrams is a long way from being anything like Stevie Nicks. Though it’s apparent this is the era of singer-songwriters she hopes to be some kind of “modern-day” answer to. By the time “Daughter From Hell” comes along, it’s undeniable that such a goal has fallen entirely flat.
For this particular number, things shift back to the guitar (albeit an electric one—for it very much wants to serve 90s alt rock), the intent being to mirror the “moody,” “angst-ridden” aura of a teenage girl. Especially a teenage girl within the context of her relationship with her mother. For, according to Abrams, she was something of a difficult teenager. As many rich kids and/or nepo babies tend to be (just read any Bret Easton Ellis book). After all, life is rough when, as Bob Dylan once put it, you’re “helpless, like a rich man’s child.” And Abrams is very much that. Nonetheless, the song isn’t a thank you to J. J. Abrams so much as it is to Katie McGrath, with Abrams characterizing it as a “long overdue” apology to her mother, the less well-known of her film and TV industry parents, for it’s J. J. Abrams’ work that is more recognizable than McGrath’s scant few credits as a producer.
In various interviews (including the one she did for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon), when the subject of this track comes up, she’s always sure to mention with pride that the song made her mother cry. As if that’s any great feat. Particularly when taking into account that all parents—but more markedly parents that are rich—tend to “moved” by whatever their children do. With Abrams, “owning” who her parents are by publicly thanking them (though, again, mostly thanking Katie) is meant to reshape the narrative around being a nepo baby and “humanize” it to the average person. But that gets bogged down by the treacly nature of the song, as Abrams insists that she now wants to be like her mother rather than rebel against her. Thus, the lyrics, “I want your patience/I want your grace/I want your sugar [and she certainly got plenty of that when it came to cash disbursement during her youth]/I want to say/How much I owe ya.” But is it McGrath she owes, or merely the randomness of the “birth lottery”? Either way, she appears to want to make other nepo babies feel at ease with emerging from behind the shadows to announce who their parents are by thanking them for all this opportunity—something that even Taylor Swift hasn’t dared to do in her songwriting (the closest she’s gotten to “parent talk” being 2019’s “Soon You’ll Get Better”).
Doubling down on the “you thought you ate?” quotient, Abrams continues to discuss her privileged existence with “Look at My Life,” the second single from the album. Wanting to ostensibly “connect” on some level with the “typical person,” she assures, “Oh well, look at my life/Bet you can’t tell, but it’s kind of a bad time.” But if Abrams’ life is supposed to be a “bad time,” then that surely makes everyone else’s a waking nightmare. And it’s a shame that the topic of the song gets in the way, for it’s among the more standout offerings on Daughter From Hell, if for no other reason than it breaks up the generally generic, “all of these songs sound the same” vibe. This one, too, being an acknowledgement of her “fame anxiety,” getting straight to the point with, “How long have I got/In the hot light till the shine rusts?”
This notion of time running out/being extremely finite when it comes to experiencing “good things” also showed up on “Death Wish” in the form of: “How long will you give me?/Till you twist the knife with a smile while you kill me?” Abrams is essentially asking the same of the fans and critics that have lavished her with praise these past few years. And the answer she’s gotten back rather quickly in response (at least critically speaking) to Daughter From Hell is that maybe the “hot light” won’t burn much longer if she doesn’t come up with something more to say. Not only that, but something that actually distinguishes her from those she’s compared to (with Taylor Swift, Lorde and Olivia Rodrigo being at the top of that list).
“Good Reason” is another prime example of Abrams struggling to find new material to talk about as she once again plays the self-flagellating apologizer in a relationship, telling an apparently “good” guy that she wishes she had an actual “good” reason to end things. Backed, of course, by an acoustic guitar. As she “sweetly” sings this mea culpa, she tells the object of her non-affection, “If only I had a good reason/Oh, but I bet you’ll probably sit there and take it/Well, that only makes me regret it/If only I had a good reason…/If only I chose you and not me.” A bit of an odd thing to say for someone of her generation, and also a line that’s in direct contrast to Olivia Rodrigo’s cautionary tale, “purple,” from You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love. During which she paints the picture (in purple, of course), “It’s a small world/When it only can revolve around us two/It’s crazy/I had big dreams ‘til I tied myself to you/Now I’m all-consumed.”
Abrams, instead, opts for some decidedly Carrie Bradshaw thinking (specifically when it comes to Aidan in season three of Sex and the City) with the line, “If only you treated me poorly/If only you didn’t adore me.” So no, she doesn’t have a “good reason,” per se, to “ditch this guy,” she’s just looking for a little more drama in her life (perhaps to inspire some better songs). And, speaking of drama, “Men Like You,” another piano-centric ballad, is filled with it. Mainly because the big “twist” of the song is that it’s directed at a woman, or “girl” as Abrams phrases it. Calling out that “bitch” at the one-minute mark with the verse, “Girl, I know men like you, you/Set me up/Your game for losing/You did it for the storyline/If all you ever wanted was a golden ticket/You could’ve just said it/It would’ve saved me time.” Within the span of this verse, her Taylor-Olivia split personality is at its most overt. Because, yes, Swift is now known for shaming women who have “done her wrong” (hear: “Actually Romantic”), while one of Rodrigo’s biggest hits, “vampire,” is a scathing “fuck you” to someone who used and abused her (with many positing it was Swift herself). Abrams broaches similar territory with the lyric “You’ll find someone to use/Go make yourself the hero.”
Funnily enough, when she tells this girl, “You think you’re being cute/It only leaves me hollow,” the same, honestly, could be said to Abrams in regard to this entire record. One that will leave more discerning listeners feeling entirely too “Sober.” Incidentally, a song that one might need be drunk or high to enjoy and/or not be annoyed by. With Abrams once again reverting to her whispering vocals and acoustic guitar backing, the song feels like an attempt at recapturing 00s-era indie music (think: the Juno Soundtrack). And, like most music that imitates, it’s never as good as the real thing (just ask Halsey with her “Lucky” homage). Still, Abrams does what she can to “summon up a vibe” with such “storytelling” images as, “Got sick, when you held my hair I liked it/I’m a party, you’re invited/You ring my bell [okay, Anita Ward]/I miss you, from across the room, I wish you’d/Read my mind, you turn me see-through.”
Alas, the thing about becoming so vulnerable with someone is that it leads to the subject of “Broke My Heart” (following the now well-trodden pattern of swinging back to piano instead of acoustic guitar), which is, of course, getting one’s heart broken. And, once again, as was the case in “The Knife,” Abrams talks about how “I’m gonna carry the pain/For my whole life.” Such a drama queen. And one who conveys the Swiftian puerility of never getting over anything in her entire life ever. For such is the privilege of growing up privileged. Still, Abrams wants to keep her variations on a theme going, and that includes mentioning, “Evidence of all our days into the bonfire.” For it wouldn’t be Daughter From Hell if Abrams didn’t keep going back to the image of fire (this, too, applying to her “witchy” shtick on the cover, for everyone knows witches were burned at the stake for their “antics”). Visuals that appear in the videos for both “Hit the Wall” and “Look at My Life” (even if, in the latter, that takes shape as a dumpster fire).
And perhaps, if there was a video for “Mews,” a fire could be shown burning down “a row or street of houses or flats that have been converted from stables or built to look like former stables.” ‘Cause, to the British, that’s what “mews” means. And maybe Abrams would live in such a structure with Paul Mescal if she wasn’t still busy talking about a fledgling past relationship, which is, once more, what “Mews” dissects, starting from the moment Abrams asks, “Do you hear the sound/Of our engine fading?”
Just when the listener wishes this very album would fade, there’s a notable breath of fresh air in the form of “Minibar.” And the differing topic of this track—social anxiety—is a marked departure from the other fare (which is probably why Abrams performed it on The Tonight Show while promoting the record the night before its release). Clocking in at exactly two minutes (ideal “TikTok length”), there is an exuberance to the sound and tone as Abrams starts to feel “weird” and “insane” merely from being out in the world. At one point, she even remarks, “Someone perceived me, kinda scarred” (a line that reeks of Audrey Hobert, who co-wrote). If that isn’t the very summation of Gen Z, nothing else is.
Tellingly, “Minibar” is the only song on Daughter From Hell co-written by Hobert, who had a much stronger presence on the more acclaimed The Secret of Us. Fully realizing that Hobert (not Aaron Dessner, another “hand-me-down” element from Swift) was Abrams’ true secret weapon is, thus, crystallized with this album. But maybe Abrams is going to start leaning on Paul Mescal as her go-to co-writer now, as she let him into her songwriting world for “Imaginary Friend.” This being very Swift-like as well, in terms of her letting Joe Alwyn (a.k.a. “William Bowery”) in on Folklore and Evermore. It’s also a bit ironic that Mescal would co-write a song called “Imaginary Friend” when considering what goes down in All of Us Strangers. In any case, the meaning of the song can be interpreted in a few ways, though one of them is the notion that the person she’s with is fundamentally a “projection.” But the actual image of him doesn’t quite seem to live up to it. Either that, or she’s still talking to an ex with whom things didn’t work out, as evidenced by the chorus, “So I stop and fill the gaps/I’m sorry, but I have to ask/If you could do me just a little favor/I’ll return it later, promise not to laugh/I talk to you, you don’t talk back/‘Cause you’re a figment of my imagination/Man, I fucking hate it.” Or, another meaning still is that Abrams is a total schizophrenic.
A diagnosis that transitions nicely into “Afflictions,” which continues to follow the piano song-then guitar song-then piano song-then guitar song pattern that’s at play. And it marks a brief “return to form” on the album, standing out for being one of the more genuine and earnest love songs—which is why it’s allegedly inspired by Mescal. And that would track based on Abrams’ appreciation, “You hold my hand through turbulence/You sugarcoat the oxygen/My lungs are full, I’m sick again/I feel you coming on/You never simply talk to me/You tell the truth about everything/Of all of your afflictions/That is my favorite one.” And yes, it’s meant to be “very clever” to bill telling the truth as an “affliction.”
Another affliction is “Humming,” yet another “woe is me” track that follows. And while some might try to bill it as a “generational anthem,” Abrams ultimately does what she does best: complains about nothing. Along with how, once you achieve what you thought you wanted, it doesn’t turn out to be quite as you hoped (as if previous generations weren’t well in on that “secret,” arguably more so). This motif also being addressed on “Look at My Life” when she sings, “My nightmare actualized/Got what I wanted, doesn’t sit right” (which has echoes of Billie Eilish’s feelings on “everything i wanted”). Within the context of “Humming,” that becomes, “And I wake up/What a beautiful dream/When you get so close you can taste it/But it’s not real long, just an hour of relief/Till my eyes adjust to the lighting.”
Abrams’ disaffection with the way things are veer toward the only instance on the album where she vaguely refers to what might be considered “daughter from hell” activities by way of singing, “My brain half-melted down/All that weed from seventeen/Has caught up to me now.” And maybe she’s right about her brain melting, since she has the gall to call out people in power while herself being in a powerful and privileged enough position to do something beyond positioning herself as one of the true victims of the government, likening the current situation to the Titanic when she declares, “I’m convinced our sinking ship/Will sing as it goes down/Haunting hymns keep echoing/After we’re in the ground/And they’ll wake up to this horrible scene/Where they left us out here for drowning/And it’s our blood on their hands, never clean/Never clean, never clean, never clean.” What Abrams doesn’t seem to have any awareness of is that her kind is part of the They.
And with that, she’s on to her next “twangin’” guitar song with “What If It’s Right?” featuring Marcus Mumford (another very Taylor thing to do in terms of a feature that tries to make someone cornball acceptable again à la Brendon Urie on “ME!”). Better known as the lead singer of Mumford & Sons (or, to the even more pop culturally attuned, Carey Mulligan’s husband). To be sure, it seems Abrams wants this to be her version of Swift’s “exile” featuring Bon Iver (or perhaps have an Inside Llewyn Davis feel, which is the movie that led to Mumford meeting Mulligan). Alas, it doesn’t quite make the grade, and that’s not just because she finds herself regurgitating the same imagery she’s been giving us (e.g., “I’m a knife cut to the bone”), but also because of the grating repetition of, “But is it the wrong thing/But what if it’s right?/What if it’s right?/This could be the wrong thing/What if it’s right?”
It seems the only “right thing” by the end of this album, however, is hearing Abrams finally bid us her “Cold Goodbyes.” A denouement that finds her doing her best to channel some deep, Billie Eilish-style vocals (think: “when the party’s over”) as she delves into some other quintessential “privileged people problems” like, “Look at all these people/Do I have to play tonight?,” “Used to know what landed well for me/But now it’s hard to find” and “Now the aliens are asking if I’m okay” (that line [regardless of “who” she’s really referring to] will certainly fuel the theory that all famous people are either aliens or working with them). But if Abrams truly did present as “okay,” then she probably couldn’t conjure up all her teenage-level angst as easily. And no, there’s nothing “wrong,” per se, with being forever stuck in “teen girl” mode (both mentally and aesthetically—because if you have the means to do so, why not?), but it’s a bit nuts to try to position that as being “mature” or more “evolved.” As Abrams so patently wants to on Daughter From Hell.
And while, lyrically, the songs are “poetic” enough—and certainly on par with all of the shit that Swift comes up with—the delivery and music itself combines to make these tracks sound schmaltzy, wooden and totally devoid of genuine emotion. Because maybe “genuine emotion” is more challenging to dig up when one has been as, let’s say, sheltered as Abrams for most of her life.
Thus, rather than a “sophomore slump,” it seems Abrams is having a bit of a “junior slump” with this third album. Which means Olivia Rodrigo’s place as one of the foremost “Gen Z Taylors” on the singer-songwriter front is not in any threat (and yes, You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love is infinitely more listenable).
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