album review: 'bullseye' by charli adams

It’s not that I’m surprised we got here, but rather that it took so long to do so.

And to explain that statement, we have to briefly talk about genre, specifically coming out of the 2000s revival that is now in full swing, specifically an intersection point that hasn’t happened as often as you’d expect. The first genre is emo, which picked up a bit more of a pop sheen throughout the 2000s to the point where purists would argue the bands tagged with the label weren’t even emo. But it was usually a male-dominated genre - and in many cases, it still is - and that’s in sharper contrast to the second subgenre that picked up steam, especially the mainstream: pop rock predominantly fronted by women, who embraced a rougher, more ‘authentic’ sound and approach to songwriting in contrast with the bubblegum era around the turn of the millennium. And I always found myself surprised there wasn’t more crossover, women who could embrace the sharply layered, confessional edges of emo songwriting while still maintaining the pop sheen for crossover - yes, there was Paramore and they’ve proved remarkably influential, proving there’s a market for it, but you’d think there’d be more than just them among the success stories of the era.

And I’ll admit, as much as I like the many waves of emo, I really appreciate when the genre expands to encompass more sounds to go with that style of writing, from the balancing act of 2000s emo rap to the hit-and-miss success of trap crossovers today. And then there’s the country fusions, epitomized by Ruston Kelly’s breakout but I still remember when his now ex-wife Kacey Musgraves talked about going down that road. And of course we’re now seeing acts that bring in a brighter pop sheen - I’ve gone on at length about Jetty Bones’s theatrical blend of shimmering brightness with pitch-dark subject matter, but you can look at many of the modern acts that appeal to Gen Z as having a lot of emo signifiers, especially in the introspection and angst.

And right into that mix, enter Charli Adams - a singer-songwriter from Alabama that I became familiar with through ‘Headspace’, a non-single that just so happened to be a collaboration with Ruston Kelly. In my song review I thought the track was pretty great and I was intrigued by how she seemed to meet the intersection of Americana-infused indie pop with heartfelt introspection that had a distinctly emo feel. Hell, the opening song on this debut album was called ‘Emo Lullaby’, so i was absolutely curious about where this album would go - so what did we get?

Well we got an album that’s both deceptively easy and complicated to talk about, where the comparison point is less Jetty Bones and more Lydia Loveless circa Real or Daughter. And even that feels a bit off, not just in how Adams’ tones have a fair bit more shimmer and propulsive atmosphere, but also how her writing style feels younger - having perhaps lived just as hard but her perspective isn’t as worldweary and that changes the feel of the project. Hell, I’d almost place it as a contemporary of what Olivia Rodrigo delivered this year, especially in song structure and writing style, but Bullseye feels older than SOUR - laser-targeting the drifting, heartbroken miasma of your early 20s, with more impressive production and hooks and especially the writing, which is the big reason I’m about to tell you this is one of the best albums of 2021, a stellar debut that completely caught me off-guard just how hard it hit for me. Granted, I tend to praise all the acts I listed a little more than most, but given how I can tell I’m not the direct target audience, for it to still work the way it does is a testament to quality, should you give it the chance.

And I do think this is an album you have to give a chance, because while it gripped me very quickly, I can see how for some they might question how much is really here - so let’s address that quickly from the start. Some of that comes with the shorter song structure - this is an album that runs just under 40 minutes and it feels like it runs faster, a nice change of pace for emo-leaning material - but let’s be real, it’s not like the scattered mosaic of textures that Adams brings don’t show their influence, from the gleaming 80s pastiche synths and gated drums across the middle of the album to the more 2000s pop rock tones with watery guitars and more defined grooves. Now I would argue that all of these influences don’t really feel derivative given other choices in production, composition, and especially with Adams’ soft-spoken, husky delivery that feels very modern, but if there’s going to be something that’ll hold folks back from truly embracing this, it might be Adams as a performer. Not that she’s bad by any means - she’s a solid singer who picks up some really pretty vocal arrangements and like with that last Lucy Dacus album I like how she uses more synthetic vocal filters to highlight her numb depression and separation from the world around her - but like with Ruston Kelly it lends the album a wistful heaviness that doesn’t always compliment a sense of immediacy. And to be blunt, I’m not sure the pure pop moments have the punch to work as well as her best songs here: ‘Get High w/ My Friends’ has that watery twinkle and more propulsive groove - obvious single choice is obvious - and ‘Remember Cloverland’ is pure retro synthwave, but they both feel a bit undercooked to match her best emotional gut punches; maybe that has to do with the shorter length, but I do think they could have been more anthemic and I’m not sure if that’s in Charli Adams’ arsenal just yet.

And that’s about where my pointed criticisms of this album end - because if you do let this sit with you, it’ll grab hold and not let go. Yes, the influences in her sound might be pretty obvious, but it reminds me of Kyle Craft in that the combination of sounds never feels derivative, and there’s a diversity to her tones that will keep your interest. The album might start with a slow burn courtesy of the watery guitars and synthetic vocal production enhancing that numb feeling, but ‘Cheer Captain’ packs a wallop with the sputtering snarl left in, which only expands into the shimmering groove and beautiful buzzy arrangement of ‘Didn’t Make It’, which hits the precise warping balance of fractured at its core but still able to capture the full swell of the mix - it reminds me a lot of the best modern Bon Iver, or coincidentally whenever Taylor Swift adopted that formula last year. And that compositional formula works wonders between the brittle sputters of ‘Headspace’ opposite the synths imported straight from mid-to-late 80s Americana to the more contemporary new wave of ‘JOKE’S ON YOU (I Don’t Want To)’ that could fit alongside CHVRCHES’ best, to the beautiful acoustic atmospherics on ‘Bother With Me’ with a short guitar solo where I could swear the tone was designed to evoke the solo on ‘Fix You’ by Coldplay - and that’s a compliment! I should also mention the guest stars here - both Ruston Kelly and Nightly frontman Jonathan Capeci are a natural countervoice in the relationship drama they describe and fit perfectly, but I was most impressed by how Novo Amor fills in the background of ‘Seventeen Again’, just how well the song opens up its nostalgic scope that nails that distant warmth of memory; it’s also one of the few places where I actually like where the studio chatter was left in for the outro, a pull back to reality. And the album ends with its heaviest moment in the title track - the guitars are rougher in pulling back to the 90s and 2000s influences, the groove kicks up, and even if they could roar a little heavier, it lands on precisely the note of not-quite certain confrontation that the album has been building towards its entire runtime.

And that takes us to the content, where I think this album truly hits some stunning moments and where I think the Lydia Loveless comparison fits most appropriately, especially when it comes to framing which reminds me a lot of 2016’s Real. Because while this album has its emo moments to slide into depression, self-destructive behaviour, and pervasive angst, Adams is self-aware enough to not really give herself a pass nor frame herself as an entirely reliable narrator. Yeah, some of the guys here come across as complete assholes - the musician boyfriend living down to every awful stereotype on ‘Cheer Captain’, the rich douche who won’t stop bragging on ‘JOKE’S ON YOU (I Don’t Want To)’, but in the former track she openly questions why she’s attracted to it and doesn’t speak up more, and in the latter track there’s a great line ‘I don’t even want you to change’, where she’s claimed enough self-confidence to step push back from his dive bar projections and pushy attitude, but there’s a part of her that wound up there in the first place. And these are sandwiched alongside songs of unrequited love that really do cut: ‘Didn’t Make It’ is a prime example where you can tell both partners were trying so damn hard to make it work in their teens and it just didn’t click, and the follow-up on ‘Headspace’ with Ruston Kelly where both partners are imploding for parallel reasons and yet can’t quite shake out of it is a masterstroke of balance. And that follows through into ‘Maybe Could Have Loved’, where he might be petty and cheating and she might be detached and refusing to open up, but the key line is in the hook: ‘whatever happened to loving someone / long enough to hurt someone’ - it follows the similar arc of an album like Real because the throughline of emotional logic is so defined and robust, but doesn’t really tilt into melodrama because you can understand why Adams acts the way she does, where it makes a sad sort of sense.

Now part of this is established very early with ‘Emo Lullaby’, which features her in therapy where at the end of each verse she apologizes for oversharing because she feels like she should have already resolved these issues in her teenage years, and paired with the utterly devastating line ‘Haven’t called my friends in a while / wonder if they miss me’, a loneliness that feels palpable. And she does recognize the roots of this on ‘Cheer Captain’ in how she’s been conditioned to be a good girl and people pleaser but she yearns to live on a path that would take her away from that - even if embracing that passion will bring more heartache. It’s why every failed relationship stings because she knows she wants better and doesn’t want to have to settle for it, so when something that could work goes awry it hurts more, and why I’m convinced that ‘Bother With Me’ bringing in the guitar solo reminiscent of ‘Fix You’ had to be intentional - she’s wondering how she’s broken, too jaded and stubborn, she wants to be wanted. And that’s a reason I don’t mind the retreat into nostalgia on ‘Remember Cloverland’ and ‘Seventeen Again’, mostly because it’s therapeutic to find escapism in friends and freedom, but also because it’s just an echo - she knows it won’t last and she has to keep moving forward. And it leads into a title track that might as well be a thesis statement: she’s found enough confidence to stare down the immensely flawed paternal figures ahead of her in both men and God, where she acknowledges their flaws and her attraction to them, but she’s got her eye on a bigger prize - not there yet, but for now, she can shoot true.

Folks, this was an album I did not want to put down - in a backdrop of dreamy passion she’ll keep spending until she strikes gold, Charli Adams put out the sort of captivating, varied, and yet grounded and fully formed debut that delivers in spades. The hooks are there, the blend of synthetic and organic is impeccable, the production is frequently gorgeous with every intentional fracture, and with writing that can both set a scene and cut to the feeling, in a just world this album would make her a star. Call it pop, rock, alternative country, or everything in between, Bullseye lived up to its title: 9/10, one of the best albums of 2021 that’s gonna be slept on, and you should hear it.