So after taking a little break from music with too much feeling, I was in no way prepared for Annika Bennett’s emotionally charged Triple Shooting Star this week.
I feel I’ve already admitted to crying to far too much music this year, but I’ve been quietly sobbing along to this one since A Cure. It’s a beautiful, moving collection of tracks in which Annika lays bare so many insecurities.
This year feels like it’s all been about women making real music, and Triple Shooting Star is no exception. It’s a deeply self-reflective collection and there’s something about this vulnerability that just gets me. There’s a certain bravery in choosing to put these moments out into the world when you’re not feeling your finest, to be able to look back over the debris of a failed relationship and release you didn’t always make the right choice.
Annika’s folk style of music leaves nothing to hide behind either. There’s no dressing up her distress as a light-hearted pop number, it’s raw and unfiltered. Triple Shooting Star opens with Big House of a Mountain, a more country inspired track that highlights the conflicted feelings and emotions that run through this album. The lines “I want someone to hold me and say we’ll be alright and I want it to be true” speaks to the fundamental aspect of humanity – isn’t this, at the most basic level, what everyone wants.
And it’s these little lyrical moments throughout the album that really get you. It’s not overly fancy Lana-type sad lyrics or even a richly layered Florence Welch story telling album. It’s just the little flashes that really hit you. “You keep looking for a band aid, babe I’m searching for a cure” (The Cure) “I felt wanted when you wanted me” (Still Pretty) maybe it’s just my mood this week but I absolutely think I’ve found my new album to cry to (retiring Amy Winehouse after more than 15 years).
All of this is backed up by well-crafted song writing which helps perfect the delivery. It’s a fairly safe album in this regard, the songs are quite traditionally structured and I like that it’s not trying to be too clever because it would absolutely take away from what makes this album work. You almost need the security of this familiarity, of being able to predict where it will go musically so you can fully appreciate the story of the songs.
It’s hard to pull out a favourite as I really enjoy what the album delivers as a whole. The tracks bounce and resonate off each other, whether it’s the working out if you can trust each other in Fuck Up, the after-break-up feelings of Still Pretty, or the replaying of where and how it all went wrong in See It Through.
I don’t know what I expected from Triple Shooting Star, but it wasn’t this. It was a far more moving, poignant album than I was anticipating. I think what struck me was that I could see myself in both the heartbroken and the heartbreaker roles in the tracks. I wasn’t only seeing and identifying with Annika’s suffering but reflected in her struggles there were also my own bad choices and the impact they could have made.
Listen to Triple Shooting Star here.
Find out more about Annika Bennett here.