ives. – Siren (13th Floor Album Review)

There’s something immediately magnetic about ives. and her debut album Siren. The title alone pulls you into mythology: a nod to the part maid, part bird creatures from Homer’s Odyssey, whose songs lured sailors into dangerous waters. But here, the siren call is different. It is not a warning but an invitation. An invitation to sit inside the mist and to allow music to arrive not as spectacle or surface, but as atmosphere, as texture, as emotional landscape.

Written by Olivia Jones and Mark Perkins, with features from Joshua Yong, the album was produced by Jones and Perkins, engineered by Perkins and Emily Wheatcroft-Snape, and mixed by Perkins alongside Simon Gooding. Mastering was completed by Paul Gold at Salt Mastering, with recording sessions spanning Auckland, Melbourne and Los Angeles, and distribution through DRM NZ.

Whilst many debut albums scramble for attention with sharp hooks and slick choruses, Siren takes the opposite route. This is not an album designed for instant gratification. Instead, it unfolds slowly and deliberately like a series of delicate brushstrokes building into a larger painting. Each song feels less like a standalone single and more like a chapter in an unfolding story. The result is an album that plays less like a collection of tracks and more like a complete body of work. This truly is a soundscape, a journey and a mirror held up to the turbulence of a young artist’s life.

Ives. doesn’t raise her voice to make you listen. Her power lies in restraint. Vocals are layered softly and often understated as if whispered directly into the ear. Beneath them, shimmering synths, oceanic field recordings and strings that truly feel like tender salt air and 808s that hum with a low, steady heartbeat. The whole record feels fluid, milky, opalescent… more like weather moving across a coastline than traditional pop music.

The heart of Siren is heavy, though its textures do soften the blow. Written across her late twenties, the songs reflect a period marked by heartbreak marking the ending of a seven year relationship and her mother’s diagnosis with secondary progressive MS. These events form the gravitational pull of the record. They weigh it down, but never crush it. Instead, ives. allows grief and resilience to co-exist in the same sonic space, balancing pain with light, despair with dream.

  • “Babylon”sets the tone, questioning how humans wrestle with time. Its sound feels ancient and futuristic all at once.
  • “Lonely Tears”bathes in an alt pop x folk cross over with its psychedelic textures, pulsing like neon signage on a dark street.
  • “Heart is the Home”strips everything back, offering an unguarded intimacy. Written as a gift for her ex, it was recorded in one single take… raw, exposed, and achingly human.
  • “Fall Apart”is perhaps the most cinematic moment, not just musically but visually, with its Melbourne-shot video amplifying the song’s themes of fragility and collapse.

And then there is the ending: not tied up neatly, but left unresolved. I loved that. What a finale! The final chord hovers, uncomfortable and haunting, reminding us that grief is not a story with a bow. Some things remain unfinished. And perhaps that is the point.

There’s a striking parallel between the cover art and the music itself. Just as her image is painted, song by song she paints with sound. Each layer of vocal harmony, synth textures, subtle percussive detail are all brushstrokes. Stand back and the full canvas comes into view: a portrait not of perfection, but of process. A portrait of someone learning to live inside both love and loss.

Critics have already begun drawing comparisons to other alt-pop artists (where I really think this is a true alt-pop x folk sort of cross over as opposed to traditional maximalist alt-pop – as the “purists” would say) but to flatten Siren into these mere comparisons totally misses the point. This isn’t about chasing trends. It’s about creating a space that is hers alone in a sonic world that feels haunting, cinematic and deeply human.

Siren is not an easy record nor is it meant to be. It does not beg for your attention; it waits for you to give it willingly. For casual listeners, it might feel slow, even elusive. But for those willing to sit with it, to let its layers wash over them like shifting light on water, it is profoundly rewarding.

This is not a debut built on spectacle… it is one built on subtlety. And in a world that often prizes speed, shine and instant hits (thanks tik-tok) that feels almost radical. With Siren, ives. has carved out her own territory: music as atmosphere, music as painting, music as survival. A haunting, rain-soaked gem that leaves you both unsettled and strangely comforted a siren call you won’t soon forget.

Exceptionally refreshing. 5 very well deserved stars.

Veronika Bell

Release Date: 3 October 2025

 

Veronika Bell
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