The Baby

A native New Yorker and daughter of professional performers, Samia Finnerty had acted off-Broadway and appeared on prime-time TV by the time she released her first angsty guitar and piano songs as a 20-year-old in 2017. After rising through the touring ranks with opening slots for the likes of Cold War Kids and Soccer Mommy on the strength of early songs, Samia makes her full-length and Grand Jury label debut with The Baby. Recorded with a trio of producers, including members of Hippo Campus, the album reinforces her disquieted, 90s-influenced sound while showcasing her way with an effortless-sounding hook as a delivery device for more-demanding, personal lyrics. It opens with the atmospheric, scene-setting Pool (How long do you think we can sit here before we have to move?), then settles into a bouncy, lite grunge with the driving Fit N Full. The albums rock-leaning tracks are outnumbered by more pristine and lyrical, adult-alternative-type tunes -- Big Wheel, the acoustic ballad Does Not Heal, the jazzy, clean-toned Waverly -- but it resists straying far enough away to arrive at pretty, and its anxiety never quite dissipates. Even the tuneful, stomping pop ditty Minnesota talks of the pit in my stomach and some disgusting accident of communion, even cursing before she reluctantly invites a companion to join her out of state. The 11-song set closes with the melancholy Is There Something in the Movies (...thats better than my love?), a ballad with a memorably high-contrast vocal performance. Taken together, The Babys combination of breezy melodies and vulnerability makes for an engaging listen well worthy of the promising designation. ~ Marcy Donelson