Gracie Abrams says Daughter From Hell is “a little bit less diaristic, and mildly more existential,” a shift that makes Paul Mescal feel like a side note to the record’s real story. The third album is less about confessional spill and more about how she is stretching the same instincts that carried her recent work into a bigger frame.
That matters because The Secret of Us debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 in 2024, and the bonus track “That’s So True” became a top 10 hit. Abrams is not backing away from the sound that worked; she is changing the angle of attack, which is usually how artists keep momentum without sounding like they are repeating a winning formula.
Popcast and Aaron Dessner
Abrams discussed the album in a Popcast interview and has kept Aaron Dessner in the loop as a co-writer and producer. Their run goes back to the EP This Is What It Feels Like in 2021, and that continuity suggests the new album is not a reset so much as a refinement of an established partnership.
The record still leans on acoustic guitar, soft percussion, and tender strings, but the writing is the change. The guitar is more often fingerpicked than strummed, which gives the songs less of a diary-entry feel and more room to breathe as arrangements.
Mews and The Knife
Piano features prominently on “Mews” and “The Knife,” and that choice nudges the album toward a murkier emotional register. “Mews” is a smoky ballad about not noticing the downturn of a relationship until it is too late, while “The Knife” keeps the same interior focus without reaching for melodrama.
“Good Reason” sharpens the contrast. It is airy in 3/4 time, softer and warmer than “I Love You, I’m Sorry,” and it ditches the verbose bridge in favor of a pared down post-chorus. Abrams even writes in a line that lands like a full private argument: “If only you got disappointed/If only I kept every promise/If only you treated me poorly/If only you didn’t adore me.”
Good Reason and Look at My Life
“Good Reason” and “Look at My Life” show where the album is heading: one song trims the language down, the other turns inward through a play-by-play of experiencing “a new spiral every night.” That is a cleaner business proposition for listeners of Gracie Abrams than simple diarism, because it widens the emotional range without abandoning the intimate scale that made her name.
The complication is that Abrams calls the album more existential, but the review says “mildly” is putting it, well, mildly. That is the useful read on Daughter From Hell: the record sounds like a deliberate shift, yet it still works by the same pressure points that made her earlier material land.
