The title Little Miss Sunshine of Eaves Wilder’s debut album is a nod to the contradictions at the heart of her work. At the same time, her previous songs touched on dreamy and riot grrrl influences, but she refuses to be boxed in on her awesome first record. Co-produced with Andy Savours (My Bloody Valentine, The Killers, The Horrors, Black Country, New Road, Sorry) across the album, she embodies a “bigness” that subverts her sometimes “sweet” persona; this isn’t about commercial scale but emotional and elemental magnitude and song writing vision. A bigger, bolder sound, but also music and words that would make her feel tectonic – like a hurricane, a mountain, or the sun.
Wilder’s voice is like a storm cloud, emotive yet heavy and ethereal all at once. Powerful lead single ‘Hurricane Girl’ – was a storm-lit statement of intent that opens a window to Wilder’s expansive new world. Building from acoustic strums layered with Wilder’s intimate vocals embodying sweetness and strength, into a swaggering rock chorus inspired by early Pearl Jam that’s bristling with confidence, chunky guitar hooks and bursting into a cathartic chorus.
‘Everybody Talks’, finds Eaves at her most confessional, unapologetic, and witty, growing from a doleful, intimate and vivid depiction of being overwhelmed by the noise of live music and the audience, into a crushing crescendo of widescreen guitars that are laced with echoes of the likes of Slowdive, and an earworm-as-repeated refrain screamed to the heavens in frustration.
Both intensely personal and yet universal, it’s a sonic assault on the senses that mirrors the trauma and intrusion Wilder feels from sensory overload. ‘The Great Plains’ is a country flecked cracker with big-hearted choruses that yearns for escape. She may be full of sunshine at times, but she is full of contradictions and frustrations too, it’s natural for a young woman and artist existing in a chaotic world to harness them, carve them into her art, sounding fully in her own power.
The Fat Angel Sings 