Mim Jensen – Shadow Of The Gift (13th Floor EP Review)
Since debuting in 2023 with the single Germaphobe, Mim Jensen has built a reputation for emotionally charged, lyrically introspective indie rock. Her second EP, Shadow of the Gift, is a confident and expansive release, building on the blend of raw vulnerability with moments of cathartic intensity found in 2024’s Emotional Affair.
While her earlier EP explored themes of anxiety, self-doubt, and personal identity, this collection broadens the emotional landscape, navigating fractured relationships, self-preservation, and the lingering echoes of past trauma.
From the opening moments of Past Life, the EP establishes its sonic ambition. The track’s dark, dirty guitar strums create an ominous tension before drums crash in, underpinning a narrative of emotional inertia. It’s a song that plays with restraint and release, much like Same Blood, where the sharp opening beat builds into a spiraling refrain that intensifies dynamically. The lyric “All you had to do was love me” repeats like an unresolved plea, mirroring the push-pull of relationships unraveling. Across the record, Jensen balances the personal and the universal, allowing her raw confessionals to resonate beyond her own experience.
As well as wrestling with internal struggles, Shadow of the Gift turns its gaze outward, confronting external forces of disconnection and estrangement. PTP, the longest track on the EP, is its most expansive, moving through shifting moods with a slow-burning intensity that peaks in a moment of distorted vocal isolation before the music crashes back, heavier and more disorienting. It’s Jensen at her most sonically adventurous. This interplay of tension and release is also found in Dream Spinning, where space and restraint amplify the emotional weight.
Moments of quiet devastation sit alongside raw, layered crescendos. Warm Gun is particularly striking—its hushed, measured opening eventually gives way to a swelling urgency, the repeated phrase “staring down the barrel of a warm gun” growing more intense as the song builds. The record’s deliberate pacing ensures that even the lighter touches, like the airy strumming on the final track, Safe in Body, carry an undercurrent of unease. The interplay between vulnerability and resolve makes Jensen’s songwriting compelling.
Across Shadow of the Gift, the production feels bigger, the instrumentation more textured, but the emotional core remains the same: deeply personal, achingly honest, and unafraid to sit in discomfort. The EP confirms Mim Jensen as an artist who continues to evolve, pushing the boundaries of her sound while staying true to the lyrical rawness that defines her work.
John Bradbury
Shadow Of The Gift is due to be released on Friday, March 21st.
