Buick Audra, Nashville singer/songwriter and guitarist, released her fourth album Adult Child on June 13th. She writes for both herself and other artists, and is half of the musical duo Friendship Commanders with Jerry Roe. Her music has a unique style that emphasizes her written lyrics in a way that is reminiscent of something like spoken word poetry. For example, her third album Conversations with My Other Voice was released with a matching memoir of essays. But the production doesn’t suffer for this, instead changing intensity and even genre to match each song.
Adult Child continues this style, never staying in one place for too long. The album mostly fits into the indie rock genre, but songs such as “It All Belonged to Me” are more folk-inspired. Songs like “Birthdays & Bullshit” are full of rage and dominated by drums, but there are several moments on the album where it’s just Audra and her vocals.
At its core, Adult Child is about family and relationships, and the patterns and cycles that we repeat in our lives from our family. But the takeaway from the album is that our origins don’t define us, and we can choose to form an identity all our own. Buick Audra touches on her own estranged relationship with her family, and the album’s title Adult Child reflects the expectations and responsibilities that were placed on her as a child.
“The Worst People Win” is the first track on Adult Child and “Questions for the Gods of Human Behavior” is the lead single off of the album. They serve as the intro into this album for us listeners, and these two songs are instantly relatable to almost anyone. “The Worst People Win”, like it sounds, is about the “fact of life” that the worst people in life are often the most successful. That is insanely relatable to myself, and I’m sure that almost everyone has had a moment in their life where this “fact” comes up. “Questions for the Gods of Human Behavior” looks more inward, questioning why we as humans repeat behaviors that hurt us–also probably a relatable idea for many. These songs also provide an introduction to the indie rock production of the album, which is mostly drums and guitar. Both songs utilize these instruments to provide tension to match the themes of the songs.
“Yellow” takes a turn away from the first two songs to look at Audra herself, and about how she’s internalized what other people have said about her. Again, the production echoes this shift, as the focus is more on Audra’s vocals, and the end totally strips the production down to just a percussion beat and Audra’s vocals. The lyrics repeat three times, with each repetition increasing the layers of her vocals.
“One-Step Close-Up” goes in a different direction again, being a more upbeat song off the album. It uses photography imagery to convey the theme of Audra prioritizing herself rather than others. The fifth song “Birthdays & Bullshit” is the epitome of female rage. The drums are loud, louder than the rest of the album. The song is about the responsibilities that women are expected to have, like being in charge of birthdays. Like the rest of the album, these two songs reflect on Audra’s experience as an adult child and the difficulty that comes with breaking those expectations and relationships.
For me, “It All Belonged to Me” is one of the most devastating songs on this album. The beginning is almost ethereal, all plucky strings and humming, but it isn’t light at all. In this song, Audra writes about where she grew up, and about how she doesn’t go home anymore. “Losing My Courage” is also an emotional song and contains only Audra’s vocals. This song is about just wanting to be listened to–and by design, you as the listener will listen to Audra. It’s truly a beautiful and powerful effect.
As the only acoustic song on the album, “Firstborn” starts to close out the album on a more hopeful note. Like earlier songs, “Firstborn” touches on Audra building a life of her own separate from her past and her family. And like a mantra, the phrase “I got here on my own” is repeated several times. It’s a nice statement for the last “real” song of the album.
“A List” is not a song. Instead, we just hear Audra speaking. This track was recorded on a tape recorder, which does add another layer to her voice here. “A List” is directly about the two pieces that make up this album: Audra’s past and her future. The end also fades into “The Worst People Win,” a nice touch to wrap up this album.
This album serves as a reflection into what being an adult child was like for Buick Audra, and how it still affects her. However, within this reflection, there’s hope that she can and has built her life and identity on her own. The five stages of grief are a cliche idea, but they’re all present in this nine-song album, with acceptance being an essential part of Audra’s journey here. “A list” ends Adult Child with the click of a tape recording. Audra leaves us with a sense of finality and the hope of moving forward.
