• Reviews

• All
• Music
• DVDs
• Live
• Cinema
• TV
• Books
• Comic Books
• Video Games

Nov 05, 2021 Web Exclusive By Hayden Merrick

The path to indie eminence seems to follow a pattern. It begins with self-produced bedroom bops. Then comes the buzz—the undercurrent Spotify playlists, the 1 p.m. festival slots. And then the indie labels clamor for the awaited debut. It happened to Car Seat Headrest, it happened to Jay Som, and it can happen to Hana Vu, too. In fact, it’s already started to.

LA’s newest hype generator is the 21-year-old singer/songwriter, owner of a handful of scruffy but brilliant EPs and now armed with a debut album that’s equal parts club-ready (“Aubade”) and the soundtrack to late-night drives (“Anything Striking”). Public Storage polishes what Vu investigated on Nicole Kidman / Anne Hathaway—2019’s two-disc EP inspired by her favorite big-screen belles; namely the merger of dancey indie pop with glum, guitar-led contemplation. More than that, though, it trades low fidelity for sonorous synth- and string-coated arrangements comparable with Angel Olsen, maturing her sound into work that could pass for her second or third full-length.

The title track has the biggest overlap with her EPs. Over moody, wintery guitars, she paddles in pessimism before questioning if her feelings are trustworthy: “No I don’t really care now/Or that’s what I’ll say/Who knows if it’s true?” “Gutter” has a similar tilt, but it’s bigger and more cinematic, Sharon Van Etten not Soccer Mommy. With a wall of sound beneath her, Vu’s voice sounds charged with assertiveness despite the self-deprecating lyrics: “Kick me up/From the gutter to the curb.”

On the other side of the aisle are poppy floor fillers such as “Aubade” and “Keeper.” Vu’s vocal range is best demonstrated on the latter, with lyrics that spin platitudes into waiting-to-be-tattooed maxims: “All the people you hurt for aren’t for you.” The high-water mark comes with the flute-bedaubed “My House.” Vu sings of living on the edge of the world, of wanting a home for her own, reflecting on her family’s transience during her childhood and teenage years.

After years of uncertainty, of having to lock parts of herself away in storage, Vu has taken charge of her future. She reunites the fragments of herself into a work that is bold and propitious. For perhaps the first time in a long time, she is complete, and Public Storage is just the beginning. (www.hanavu.bandcamp.com)

Author rating: 8/10