Label: House Anxiety
Released: 1st July 2022
Basing your life around your star sign is completely acceptable. After all, it makes perfect sense. On her new EP, ‘Water Based Lullabies’, Abbie Ozard embraces her Piscean energy and plunges you into a dreamy underwater world. The seas are a shimmeringly clear blue and it’s hard to resist plunging into those crystalline depths. Abbie does as promised, lulling you into a series of angelic melodies. She washes you with the clarity of those clear waters and leaves you feeling anew.
‘Pisces’ propels the EP off to a playful start, relishing in the tongue-in-cheek and breathy vocals over fizzing keys and easy-going acoustics. It’s bedroom pop at its finest, but with a refreshing streak of self-worth and love shining through. As in touch with those emotions as she continues to be, there’s complete ownership in them. It’s an uplifting beginning that scarcely wavers throughout.
She continues to strike a balance between haze-strewn melodies such as on ‘Candy Blue’ and explosive crescendos with the force of a tsunami, such as on ‘Fizzy’. Her ability to observe and encapsulate a feeling empathetically and resonantly is impressive – combining that astute lyricism with expansive choruses only lends them more weight. It takes a great deal of talent to be completely gut-wrenchingly and still generating so much hope. ‘Grown’ is a perfect example – tender but mature, it’s a deep dive into glimmering soundscapes and dewy vocals.
Closer ‘Norway’ transforms those tumultuous tides to a peaceful brush against the shore. It builds in intensity but offers a resounding sense of tranquillity. In Abbie Ozard’s waters, there’s relief and comfort to be found. ‘Water Based Lullabies’ does what it says on the tin – easing you into rest and relaxation, but absolutely making a splash while doing so.
