Album Review: Samia, 'Bloodless'

(Grand Jury Music, digital, vinyl)

Indie-rock chameleon Samia has transcended her nepo-baby origin story through sheer talent and stubborn hard work. Blessed with a striking voice and magnetic stage presence, she has surrounded herself with top-tier talent from the start. From the studio to the stage, she’s an earnest student of the art form who’s built a successful music career with a growing fan base.

Her latest album, Bloodless, has already been duly assessed by both Pitchfork and Rolling Stone. It’s liberating to review an album that’s already got a metric ton of press coverage. This is surely a prime opportunity to go knives out, but the fact is, there is almost nothing to critique or lampoon here. Bloodless is an outstanding and beautiful album.

For this latest project, Samia reunited with producers Caleb Wright and Jake Luppin, both prolific auteurs in their own rights. The sound design and instrumentation choices are impeccable, and tracks such as lead single “Bovine Excision” and album closer “Pants” are impressively crafted gems.

While Bloodless surely stands as the best LP in Samia’s catalog to date, it would be unfair to say her writing has improved, per se. Her 2020 debut, The Baby, was the work of a fully formed artist with a distinct personality and style. Her 2023 follow-up, Honey, cut all that to the bone, revealing a rawer, weirder and even more compelling voice.

This latest album is very much a sequel to that project, examining the consequences of exposing your soul in public. Her self-appraisals are cold, cutting but also confident. “I’ve got no shortage of brilliance,” as she puts it on the hazy California folk-rocker “Fair Game.”

She ain’t kidding. These 15 tracks have immense dynamic range. Intimate coffee shop confessionals such as “Craziest Person” are a total contrast to dance-pop anthems such as “Lizard,” but thanks to careful sequencing and expert musicianship, it all works. Gorgeous psychedelic ballad “Proof” washes into the radio-rock haze of “North Poles” so smoothly you’d swear it was still the same song. Album highlight “Sacred” channels laid-back Fleetwood Mac, and her refrain, “You never loved me like you hate me now,” is a dagger to the heart.

All that is just one critic’s opinion, though. Set everything else aside and take the music for what it is: modern rock about modern life. Bloodless is just a great American album from a superb songwriter painting big pictures in short, sharp sentences. Better still, Samia has a knack for mining deeply personal details for universally relatable truths — the real shit, the good stuff.

So don’t be fooled by pop appearances. Samia’s fan base may skew “all ages,” but Bloodless is timeless alchemy, and fans of good old-fashioned rock catharsis are strongly advised to check it out.

Bloodless is available on vinyl at samia.bandcamp.com and is streaming on major platforms. Samia performs at the Higher Ground Ballroom in South Burlington on Monday, May 26.