Theresa Lucia delves into her personal experiences to create an emotional and confronting EP with the folk and country-tinged Boxes.
For many, music is therapy. If you’re creating it, you can use it to work through your own personal issues, and if you’re listening to it, you can draw comparisons that can help in whatever you’re going through. Brooklyn-based Theresa Lucia’s new EP Boxes definitely draws on personal experiences that are lying heavy with her, and with the help of the music, she manages to create therapeutic, country-tinged messages of hope that we can all relate to.
Ep-titled track Boxes opens the record, with Lucia showing lyrical clarity and strength from the offset, stating “I am mine before I am ever someone else’s”. This is set against just a backdrop of settled acoustic guitar before drums and bass gradually enter the fray. With warnings to live your own life and not to pander to anyone else, the track seems to follow an idea of ‘you live and learn’ and to not get swamped by bad choices. This is all tied together with a bright chorus that is self-affirming and catchy.
Following with Shake the Tree, the offset beats and ode to family lyrics work well against the caressing vocals that both grow together at a steady pace before arriving at a catchy country-tinged chorus. The Text then builds on a more personal and emotional context against an ongoing background organ that adds to the intensity of the track. The lyrics have Lucia wrestling with feelings for a loved one and appears to show her internal struggle with emotional equality and opening up to those closest to her: “There’s a stillness in my bedroom now that you’re not by my side… if I tell you I still love you maybe I could ease my mind.”
It feels as though we get to know the artist more and more on a personal level as the EP continues, with Luica’s life opening up before the listener. Pacifier is perhaps the most intimate track on the record as Lucia is shown to be relying on others, and allowing others to rely on her. This is set against a more soulful atmosphere that builds against haunting layers before settling down into a slow country rock groove that arrives at the biggest chorus on the EP. The record then ends on the delightful Roll With The Punches, allowing the artist to revel in the strength she’s discovered within herself.
Boxes is an emotionally strengthening journey that shows Theresa Lucia overcoming obstacles in her life and becoming a stronger person because of them. Boxes has lyrics that we will all be able to relate to or draw from in one way or another, set against delightfully honest lyrics and warm vocals that suit the atmosphere perfectly. With a frank but gentle nature, Boxes lets us all know that things will eventually be ok.
Score: 4/5
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