★★★☆
There’s no room to stuff around when it comes to Margaret Glaspy, the soulful singer-songwriter releasing her debut solo album.
The title – and indeed everything else tied up within Emotions And Math – is short, razor-sharp and cuts straight to the point: this is an artist looking closely at her romantic relationships and weighing up the personal with the analytical, wondering whether any of it is worth the trouble.
Spoiler: it’s not. There’s a callousness throughout the album, brought about by multiple woundings that inform a newfound strength and sensitivity apparent in each track. The result is a collection of anti-love songs comprised of barbed wire guitar lines across bluesy Americana with Glaspy crooning and howling over the top of it all.
Tracks like ‘Memory Street’ and anthemic lead single ‘You And I’ are gutsy and powerful, with the former featuring drums tapping out a broken heartbeat flanking some furious guitar work and incensed, spat-out lyrics. However, it’s ‘Somebody To Anybody’ – a delicate number in which Glaspy wails over a lone electric guitar – which details the quiet dignity that undercuts the album.
Fierce and fragile, Glaspy’s struggles between the internal and the rational make for an entirely relatable and rocking debut.
