Honey

Playful, painful and loaded with hooks that worm their way to the surface, Honey feels ripe for bleak midwinter wallowing.

A bright and inviting pop album that brilliantly captures the emotional snapshots of life.

If The Baby announced Samia as a vocalist and songwriter to watch, Honey makes it clear that we’ll be watching her for a long time. With ample self-awareness and a keen sense of the surreal, Samia has delivered a sonically dynamic voyage through the monstrous and merciful extremes of intimacy.

‘Honey’ pivots between lyrical complexity and spartan, but endlessly pretty arrangements.

The New York songwriter could be compared to the likes of Olivia Rodrigo or Phoebe Bridgers for her confessional, piercingly vulnerable indie–pop, but on ‘Honey’ her warmth and candour is singular.

It is music capable of helping us to navigate the world around us, and within us, with greater clarity and depth of meaning.

Finnerty returns from these loftier reaches unscathed, allowing Honey to swing big without flying off the handle. Spread this one on your toast immediately.

Honey feels uniquely her own, not only for its diaristic vignettes but also for Samia’s stronger songwriting voice and expansive sonic blend. Taken together, the record paints an affecting picture of a promising young talent, one capable of effortlessly blending genuinely creative textures and lyrical gems with the striking allure of pop music.

The album’s more pleasing songs, like “Charm You” and “Honey,” are campfire ditties with rich, inviting harmonies. These brief moments of levity suggest that, in the face of existential dread, maybe it is more rewarding to sing with the people you love than about them.

Where Honey celebrates the diverse community that informs Samia’s experience as a person and an artist, Honey does not necessarily give back, returning an inconsistent set of identities that do not always highlight what makes her a promising artist. Samia instead sinks into the honey like quicksand, encasing her to the point of occlusion.