Find Me in the Rabbit Hole is a rich and rewarding listen; combining folky guitar with lush, layered arrangements that underpin Strang’s effortless and versatile voice. Dig a little deeper and you’ll find threads of melancholy and hope so intertwined that they have become indistinguishable from each other.
Strang says the album was written in the years following a break-up — "The biggest break-up, the only break-up, really" — but is largely centred on the process of re-finding herself, and the discovery of new love. This is evident in the tone of the album, which radiates both wistfulness and transcendent strength. A wealth of storytelling is contained within each song.
"But the music I enjoy the most is when people are really authentic to their experiences," she says. Strang says she now aims to write as rawly as possible.
"I want the audience to think ‘man that must’ve been crazy for you to write’," she says.
Strang says she hopes listeners can see their own journey reflected in her songs.
"I hope they think ‘this is exactly what I’m going through’," she says. "I love it when that happens."
However, it wouldn’t be wise to listen to Find Me in the Rabbit Hole and imagine you’re receiving an unfiltered gaze into her soul, she says.
"Some of the songs are about other people I know, which is a bit of a shield."
The song Old Friend is certainly a reckoning with aspects of Strang’s own life. The dark refrain "I never thought I’d be 24" refers — among other things — to suffering chronic migraines from a young age.
"I’m quite young and these big things are happening."
By far the darkest song on the album is Space Invader — a brooding track, with horror movie scrapings and rumblings, foreboding strings and a dark-synth wave flavoured outro. It’s evidently about a toxic person invading psychic or physical space.
But many other songs are light and airy, such as the album’s single Gather Round, whose gently strummed guitar radiates a calming sense of peace. On another feel-good track, Oak Tree, Strang’s voice tumbles out in a rush, creating an unexpected tingle of joy as she sings whimsically about "Mrs Oak Tree," and a boat made of papier mache.
Later in the album, the unabashed love song Could Be Mine is strewn with pop flourishes and a contented vocal line that bounces up and down melodic staircases.
Throughout the album Strang’s effortless voice swoops through the registers, when high it is pure with an intimate breathiness. When low it is richly resonant, with a roundness as if she’s holding a fragile bird’s egg in her mouth. In songs like the album’s opener Sweet Dive, she switches between modes with ease, swooping angelically through the notes.
Angelic is an apt word for an album that conjures an almost spiritual sense of peace and acceptance with a complicated world. The song Try Again is hymn-like. There is a stripped-back intimacy as we hear the rustles and imperfections of the musicians settling down, before the song becomes richly uplifting as it reaches its almost cinematic peak. The song conveys a rueful and knowing surrender to the unavoidable pitfalls of life, yet one feels healed by it.
Despite its complex themes, Find Me in the Rabbit Hole is consistently an easy, charming listen; and despite its digestibility, it is also never boring. This is something that came as a pleasant surprise to your reviewer, who normally likes a bit more edge and dissonance in her music. Although there are no big surprises on Find Me in the Rabbit Hole, there are many small and delightful wonders. Many of the songs have a timeless quality, as if they have been plucked from our collective consciousness; and indeed, Strang seems to be channelling something universal, processing it and presenting it back to us. She is an apt adviser for our times — it is an album to heal us.
