REVIEW - THE GUARDIAN

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Gena Rose Bruce: Deep is the Way review – compelling and complex with moments of brilliance

With a feature from Bill Callahan, the Melbourne artist’s second album showcases her evolution as a sharp, honest songwriter

“Love is not simple – it’s complex and undefined,” sings Melbourne’s Gena Rose Bruce on her second album, Deep is the Way. The impossibility and inexorability of love in all its guises is central to her songwriting – and while it’s well-worn territory, her wry, observational style makes it feel new. “Am I just pouring heart-shaped coffee for someone who wanted a gin?” she wonders on lead single Foolishly in Love. The taste, bitter and surprising, lingers.

I’ve long called Bruce Australia’s answer to Angel Olsen, and the comparison holds true on this thoughtful record. Both are purveyors of a certain kind of melancholic, country-tinged blend of indie and alternative music, underpinned by emotional vulnerability and intelligence. It can be hard to cut through the noise of an ever-growing cohort of musicians in this vein, but Bruce’s sharp, honest songwriting stands out by pushing beyond genre conventions and largely avoiding cliche. The album opens with Future, on which she alternates between whispering the lyrics and, sometimes moments later, using the highest part of her versatile register. These vocal acrobatics, pulled off effortlessly, are part of what makes her music so compelling.

Like Bruce’s underrated 2019 debut record, Can’t Make You Love Me, there are clear influences here: grunge on the guitar-driven Destroy Myself, with vocals both controlled and reckless as she describes a desire for oblivion; Americana on the twangy I’d Rather Be a Dreamer, home to the tongue-in-cheek lyric, “I’m too chic to be mainstream.” But there are some more esoteric references too: Foolishly in Love and Misery and Misfortune flirt subtly with electronic and disco elements, the latter almost Minoguian in small but memorable flashes.

On this album, Bruce collaborates with Bill Callahan – the prolific stoic American singer-songwriter who has released music under his own name and as Smog. The partnership, conducted entirely online (the two have never met in person), is unlikely but brilliant. Callahan co-wrote Foolishly in Love, and duets with Bruce on the title track. Their voices – his typical matter-of-fact, almost droll delivery; hers more delicate – are perfect counterparts in call-and-response and, occasionally, in unison. Piano, guitar and, eventually, gentle electronics complete the picture. It’s a lovely track that highlights both artists’ strengths, and lyrically describes the importance of connection to stay afloat in difficult times. There’s special chemistry between the two, and the addition of a second voice adds a new depth to Bruce’s music.

Vocal acrobatics, pulled off effortlessly, are part of what makes Gena Rose Bruce’s music so compelling. Photograph: Maximum Person

There are evolutions elsewhere, too, with more emotional complexity than the more simple songs on Can’t Make You Love Me, which focused heavily on yearning. Bruce’s lyricism has deepened – the sonically beautiful Love is probably the closest to trite she comes, sounding like a riff on the famous Corinthians verse that you’ve definitely heard at a wedding. For the most part, though, the inner turmoil here is more complex, as on the stunning, swirling I’m Not Made to Love Only You. Against a glittering blend of piano and stuttering synths, which gives way to a single-line guitar, Bruce contemplates the realities of long-term love, and how this devotion can push against a longing for the excitement of something new. “The conflict between head and heart, the mystery of desire / like moonlight trying to comprehend the mystery of the night,” she sings. It’s thought-provoking stuff, delivered with the curious soul of a poet.

This is the kind of slow, reflective record that’s best enjoyed in the same mood. It charts many of the anxieties that have become part and parcel of daily living in a post-Covid world, and Bruce is frank in the ways in which these thoughts can take a toll. But songs might save us all: as she sings on Misery and Misfortune, “I’ve just gotta own my situation” – then, a moment later, “I’m just happy to be feeling.”

• Deep is the Way by Gena Rose Bruce is out now