Review Summary: a wealth of (vulner)ability on display
Tip-toeing around an empty house is Brianna Hunt. It’s raining tonight, and the streetlights outside glow a cruel irony. God, the photos on the walls are so painful – smiling family members that now only exist like the inches of tape on an old film reel. She sits on the floor of the hallway just inside the front door, and begins thumbing the low E string of her acoustic guitar.
“Are you looking for a sorry? Well I’m looking for one too”, she sings to one of the photos, her breath so heavy that it comes through on her voice. The sedated, fingerpicked guitar washes down the hall in waves and drops dead at the door. She then begins a song called
Promises, in which she fears that her life has not yet finished its unraveling. With arpeggios that seep in rather than latch on, she serenades whatever is left of the spirit in the house.
Pondering adulthood, she gets up and seeks out the master bedroom, nudging the door open with the appropriate poise of someone who has come face-to-face with a Pandora’s box of personal history. More specifically, she turns her thoughts to the
Hollow Body, and she quivers as she purrs:
“Does your heart beat?”. It’s an accusation framed as a question. The empty room evades interrogation.
By the time she finds her childhood room, she’s turned the questioning in on herself.
“I’m unworthy” she sighs during
Vessel, as if an inner self-loathing is reflected in the bedroom mirror. Of course, Brianna Hunt is not unworthy, nor is she unclean. As she plays her songs to this trove of acrid memories, she’s really just anxious and completely crestfallen. There are so many vacant rooms left to confront, but she pays no mind – hers has already paid enough. It’s why she makes these intimate and forlorn guitar songs, because their resonant chords and cavernous production choices are the perfect proxy for the vulnerable person at the helm of it all.
So,
Dear mental health survivor, you are enough. You are taller than any hole you find yourself in and bigger than any problem you face. You are worth more than any of the Gods you believe in and have more potential than Sisyphus’ boulder at the top of his hill. Listening to this EP feels like company, and after submerging yourself in its sonic landscape, it becomes increasingly evident that this company is mutually beneficial. Such are the possibilities of music.
Accordingly: thank you for this haunting, intimate and delicate piece of music, Brianna.
