The real outlier here is “Rifle Club,” which makes excellent use of its second track position, simultaneously employing every possible trope of post punk but in a more poppy and electronic way that Ian Curtis would possibly like even more than New Order. Speaking of new wave, “Just Because I Regret It,” echoing from the end of the record, nods to the genre in general and to Depeche Mode in particular, whom Daniela counts among her favorites. Between these evil twin tracks, there is a plethora of different influences, neatly packed in electropop and synth-pop sonics. The album opener “Then You Forgive Me” is almost a classical folk-bent ballad resembling the recent affair of Aldous Harding with a piano. At the same time, “Dirty Secrets,” teetering on the verge of Phoebe Bridgers’ whispers, is a glimpse of the sound of so-called newest folk from the West Coast of the US. “Insecurities” leans so heavily on the French pop aesthetic with clear references to Christine and the Queens or, pardon, Mylène Farmer that sometimes it seems that Daniela is about to sing in French now. Elsewhere, there is also a dash of trip-hop flavor in “Patchwork Girl.” It doesn’t matter if any of these songs are sad or happy — all this diversity of sounds is tightly united by vital pop rhythms and so-called art energy.

Now it’s time for the “but” part, it’s time to kill the flame. You can easily cut a rug in your bedroom under all these tunes even if some of them are a bit melancholic, but when it comes to the lyrics, everything becomes much darker. “So it’s gonna be a Monday / Your last day on this earth,” Weinmann sings in “Woolen Sweater” with the common emotionlessness of, let’s say, Karin Dreijer over soaring synths, as if these are some random lyrics from Ian Curtis’ notepad. Then she continues with an already noticeable amount of sadness: “We could hold hands and say nothing together / You look so thin inside your woolen sweater.” With such sharp and wounding details that are impossible to make up, it becomes clear that this song is about something darker than we might think. The rest of the song turns into painful ruminations about the potential alternatives of the fate of her grandmother, who has gone through euthanasia. The bitter irony of the words “I hope they give you something to feel better” is that in the face of the aforementioned procedure, it means death. This album was written shortly after this indescribable loss in an attempt to process the grief and Daniela’s own history… and maybe to help others do the same. As she says, it was created “for people who aren’t feeling well.”

order Feel Better by Odd Beholder HERE