The latest EP from the Irish singer is a set of introspective, velvet-crushed balladry, as much a cohesive mood piece as a collection of individual songs.
Biig Piig’s music has always had a certain informality. Since 2016, the Irish singer born Jessica Smyth has moved in short bursts: a prolific stream of singles and EPs. But there’s been a transience to the tunes, too. She has made rough cassette-tape hip-hop and slow jams, hazy music for the last gasps of a house party. She has dropped witty trinket-box raps, sometimes in Spanish—evidence of the years she spent growing up in Spain before moving to West London—while her writing focused on the conditions of young adulthood: heeding her mother’s advice (“Dinner’s Getting Cold”), kicking it with cigarettes and wine (“Perdida”), and sipping Hennessy next to the boombox (“Vice City”). Even the more serious songs had a sense of playfulness: Last year’s “Oh No” sounded like Smyth challenging herself to blend a Britney Spears chorus with a Radiohead-style guitar line.
Smyth’s outlook is more gloomy on her latest EP, The Sky Is Bleeding. Through these six songs, she favors quiet introspection, velvet-crushed slowcore, and new wave balladry. It’s muted and understated in texture and tempo. Her voice is no longer fluttering and soulful but smoky and hushed. This is weighty, well-crafted music, as much a cohesive mood piece as a collection of individual songs. Two years into her major label deal with RCA, you can hear Smyth moving on from her more casual approach, maturing into the role of an industry professional.
Take, for instance, “Drugs,” a highlight where Smyth plays with doomed allegories, like extinguishing flames and dancing with darkness, over a downbeat guitar line and trickling bass riff. On “Lavender,” an artist who previously captured the stoned wisdom you can only find at the end of the sesh seems scared of what the night might bring: “If I wasn’t so complacent, I just might/Wake up with a taste of the good time.” Whereas she once made being young sound fun, these songs are now littered with suffering and cynicism.
The mood is set in the torchy opener “Remedy,” with a lilting melody that conjures the image of a 1980s sports car cruising down a rain-streaked street at 3 a.m., lit only by neon light. Smyth only breaks the spell for the final song “American Beauty,” where a chugging guitar riff closes the EP with a little something for indie radio. The sullen turn in Smyth’s catalog makes for enjoyable chill-out material for the warming nights, but it occasionally downplays her personality and ability to capture the beautiful mess of young adulthood. For an artist who has spent her career zooming forward, it’s hard to say if she has found a long-term destination or merely the next stop on her journey.
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