Daughter From Hell delivers raw writing and emotional detail, but its muted sound limits the impact

Gracie Abrams has built her career on songs that feel like private thoughts accidentally said out loud. On Daughter From Hell, she keeps that intimacy, but pushes it into darker, sharper territory.

The 26-year-old singer-songwriter’s third album explores guilt, break-ups, fame, family tension and the strange emotional fog of early adulthood. It is full of self-questioning and emotional bruises, with Abrams often blaming herself without fully excusing the people who hurt her.

Daughter From Hell arrives at a major moment in her career. Abrams has moved from cult sad-pop favourite to one of pop’s most watched writers, helped by touring with Taylor Swift, earning a Grammy nomination for best new artist and scoring her first UK number one with That’s So True.

That success makes the new album feel like a test. Abrams is no longer writing from the edge of the industry. She is writing from inside it, with more attention, more expectation and more pressure to turn quiet confession into something bigger.

At its best, Daughter From Hell shows why her songs connect so strongly. Good Reason captures the painful uncertainty of ending a relationship when nothing dramatic has happened, but something still feels wrong. Broke My Heart looks at the other side of that damage, where intimacy suddenly feels like evidence that someone should have known better.

The writing is often direct, vulnerable and easy to recognise. Abrams understands the emotional chaos of your 20s, when love, ambition, family and self-image all seem to collide at once. She is especially strong when she writes about confusion rather than certainty.

The problem is that the music does not always rise to meet the words.

Much of Daughter From Hell stays in the same soft, restrained space that has defined Abrams’ earlier work. The vocals are close and breathy, the piano is gentle, the drums rarely push forward, and the production often feels deliberately blurred. That can work when the song is about loneliness or emotional distance, but across 16 tracks it starts to feel too careful.

There are moments when the album hints at something more daring. Cold Goodbyes brings a darker electronic mood. Look At My Life adds energy as Abrams reflects on fame, industry parties and the discomfort of getting what she once wanted. Mini Bar has a restless pulse that gives the record a much-needed lift.

The title track is one of the strongest moments because it lets the sound get rougher. Abrams looks back at her teenage rebellion and the pain she caused at home, but the song has more grit than many of the quieter tracks around it.

That makes the softer stretches more frustrating. Daughter From Hell has the material for a bolder album. It has vivid emotional scenes, complicated family shadows and a sharper sense of adult disillusionment. But too often, the arrangements smooth down the tension instead of intensifying it.

Abrams remains a compelling lyricist. She can turn small emotional shifts into full songs and make private guilt feel universal. But this album also shows the limits of staying too close to one sound.

Daughter From Hell is not a failure. It contains some of her most mature writing and a handful of standout tracks. But it feels like an album caught between confession and transformation.

Gracie Abrams has the words. What this record needs is more risk in the music, more bite in the production and more moments where the songs cut as deeply as the feelings behind them.