Helen Maw’s Debut Album ‘Growing Pains’ Is A Soul-Baring Journey Through Young Adulthood
Helen Maw’s debut album Growing Pains was a long time in the making. The Liverpool country and blues artist has spent the past few years digesting the various life lessons that make up this heartfelt “scrapbook of sounds”, but now she’s finally ready to let them go. The result is a work that lovingly sifts through the accumulated debris of young adulthood, taking in relationships and betrayals, first jobs and fading friendships.
Opening track Mine Tonight showcases Maw’s full-bodied, rich vocal to perfection, and introduces a note of dependency that will gradually be unpicked over the course of the record. Maw paints herself floating through her home like a ghost, watching the clock in darkness as she wills a lover to return. “Tell me that you’re mine tonight,” she begs, with all the pathos of a lovesick fifties rock’n’roll number. But for the most part, Growing Pains pushes past this kind of desperation, Maw choosing instead to nod a firm goodbye to the situations and people that no longer serve her.
Some of the album dates back as far as 2015. Second Thought is the first song she ever wrote, and here it’s imbued with tenderness as she reconnects with her own teenage lyrics. Addressed to an ex who repeatedly broke her heart, she questions how she can find herself still drawn to such a “monster”. Despite the tentativeness of lines like “I can’t believe I let you in, let you see the real me,” they’re sung with the conviction of an adult who at last really does want to be viewed for who she is. She’s plucked the thorn from her side.
There are many moments of reckoning on this album. With its immaculate harmonies and crisp guitar parts, Ain’t No Friend of Mine extends one last olive branch to someone who has wronged her, while in Your Little Secret she refuses to played around by a serial dater – an elegant resignation note to someone who has taken her for granted. Fool bristles with the sting of heartbreak, while accepting that time will help the pain subside.
The album’s guiding sentiment is probably best embodied by its title track. The sweetness and warmth of Maw’s vocal masks a frustration at her own reliance on “overrated epiphanies” – even while she undergoes one. Despite her resolve to change, she confesses she’ll actually miss the trials and tribulations of adolescence. The album’s cover, a sepia-tinted corkboard crammed with magnets, group shots and holiday scenes, echoes this bittersweet note. Dog-eared photos might spark a moment of longing for the past but they’re no substitutes for life.
The lingering impression is that of an artist steered by her head as well as her heart, applying hard-won wisdom to revisit difficult situations: acknowledging her own frailties but eager to figure out her next move. Growing Pains is spring cleaning at a molecular level, an album composed of closing chapters and quiet resolve, and a young musician readying herself for whatever life has to offer next.
Stream and buy your copy of Growing Pains now.
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Orla Foster
