Single Reviews

  AVERY ANNA - girl next door - Warner Music Nashville

With just under two weeks until the release of her highly anticipated debut album, Breakup Over Breakfast (July 19, 2024), Avery Anna has buzzed a tremendous intrigue through a well-rounded offering of what we can expect.

Having already given us flashes of an angsty, alternative rock influence on “Make It Look Easy,” floating the title track over an addictively captivating melody, and carrying a softer paced familiarity on “Two Sides of The Story” and “Blonde,” she now teases with what might be her most personal song to date, “girl next door.”

“I was thinking about my childhood best friend, and everything she has overcome in her life, and the way that we were able to lean on each other growing up. I’ve recently been very grateful for the female friendships in my life, especially when I am on the road and you guys show up to hear me sing my songs and pour my heart out. I see that same friendship in you guys that I did in her. I hope that this song brings you that same peace and closure,” Avery shared.

Solely written by Avery, the song laces its soft acoustic strum underneath the audible cry of her voice as she poetically plays off the age old saying of the grass always being greener on the other side, weaving the stark differences of the life paths that her and her best friend walked while growing up.

Pairing the juxtaposition of their opposite upbringing in each of the verses, she paints the perfect pictures of each side of the tracks, hers being the more typical route of growing up as a kid playing outside in the sun and her best friend having to grow up way too fast and become the parent of her broken household.

The incredible depth of the lyric, however, sits squarely in the powerful moments that are told from her today perspective as she looks in on what her best friend’s life must have been like, “You shouldn't be thirteen and that exhausted,” “And there's fighting in the kitchen and you're trying to escape it,” etc. guiding the transparency of the chorus as she lends an understanding shoulder to lean on:

“I don't know how it goes

Why the grass grows green on one side of the road

All I know is, when you can't take it anymore

I'm right next door”

The softness of the melody elevates Avery’s layered tones into a heart torn match within the gut-wrenching lyrics while skillfully swerving into a snapshot of the here and now to end the song with an exclamation point on the optimistic hope for the unending search of unconditional love:

“I'm in Ohio at a show

And they are crying in the front row

It's just love we're looking for

Reminds me of the girl next door!”

(Review Written By: Jeffrey Kurtis)

 

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