Tate McRae - I Used To Think I Could Fly

Tate McRae pulls out all the emotional stops on ‘I Used To Think I Could Fly’. Confessional, coy, and at times cheeky, she taps into all the anxieties and awkwardnesses of the life she’s navigating, confiding her deepest feelings in us - it’s comfortingly universal. Sometimes she veers deep into the diary-entry style, while elsewhere it’s pure piano (the painfully intimate ‘Hate Myself’, ethereal closer ‘Goodnight’). Sometimes she has swooning synths chiming in to expand the heartbreak (slow-burner ‘Chaotic’, ‘Feels Like Shit’) - and while these moments are moving, at times, they feel a little self-indulgent. Perhaps that’s because when Tate turns up the heat a little more, it becomes the perfect, angsty vessel for what she’s saying. ‘She’s All I Wanna Be’ glitters dangerously with pent-up rage; she brushes this intensity a little more breezily on ‘Cool’, a little more spikily on ‘What Would U Do’, always delivering the emotion despite the less immediately melancholic sound of her lush vocals. It’s clear from the album that Tate McRae’s arsenal of jagged pop weapons is extensive, and can be expertly wielded when she wants.