Greta O’Leary – River Dark (13th Floor Album Review)
Greta O’Leary’s debut album River Dark captures the tension between fragility and resilience, both lyrically and musically. Building on the intimacy of her early EPs, the album introduces a stronger, richer sound, with guitar, drums, bass, synthesisers, and strings subtly woven around her haunting voice.
Her lyrics retain the unguarded and heartfelt emotional clarity of her earlier work, while the arrangements give space for her vocals to shine without dominating.
The opening track Baby I’m a Singer is a slow-burning anthem of self-affirmation. A sultry vocal glides over a droning synthesiser, with drums and bass measured beneath. Strings rise and then fall away, before the song narrows to voice only; it ends with the drums and bass returning with quiet determination. It is a bold, honest statement of purpose, circling back to the triumphant invocation, “I’m a singer, I’m a winner.”
The Greatest Peace I’ve Known follows a gentle, introspective path. Piano and vocals set a meditative tone, captured perfectly in the line “Never knew life could be like this.” As O’Leary’s voice climbs higher, bass and drums move the song slowly and mysteriously forward, wrapping it in a misty, atmospheric cocoon.
In Prelude, picked guitar arpeggios leave space for O’Leary’s yearning vocal, “Don’t want to be here anymore.” An echoing, droning sound floats in and out, with drums and bass providing steady momentum. “Staring at the mountains,” she sings, before pleading, “Let me in, take my body.”
Baptised at the Desktop Computer offers a satirical twist. Ringing, echoing guitar opens the track before a sudden shift into a clipped, danceable rhythm. As O’Leary sings “Holy Water, come forth,” there is a surreal humour to this suburban, digital-era baptism. The song pulses with energy before slowing again at the close with the line “all been baptised,” leaving a bittersweet aftertaste to the album’s most musically upbeat track.
Throughout, River Dark offers steady, thoughtful music that underscores introspective lyrics and a voice that is clear and quietly powerful. Sleep Alone drifts like a daydream before dissolving into a jazz like coda full of shadow and tension. In So Lucky carefully controlled vocals rise, fall, and linger against acoustic guitar and slow, droning echoes. The title track River Dark begins as a guitar based folk song and becomes increasingly unsettling as strings and drones swell around the chilling lyric, “Darkness surrounds me.” IDKALA and Good Girl bring a meditative close to the album, full of hesitant reassurance and slowly marching resolve.
Overall, River Dark is a cohesive, brave and beautiful collection that will likely appeal to fans of Aldous Harding, Cate Le Bon, or Tiny Ruins, while charting O’Leary’s own distinctive lyrical, vocal, and musical journey through self-discovery and existential unease. With lyrics that are poetic and grounded, and music that enhances their emotional richness, it is an album that rewards multiple listens.
John Bradbury
River Dark is released on Friday, May 9th.
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