Premiere: Want Queen Shares New Single “Grievances”

Debut Album Saturnalia Out on October twenty seventh.

Oct 12, 2023

By Caleb Campbell

Pictures by Alison Scarpulla

Want Queen is the mission of Cleveland-based singer/songwriter Grace Sullivan. As Want Queen, Sullivan crafts a mystic and hypnotic model of indie pop, people, and dream pop, knitting shimmering layers of guitars and synths along with a pointy and emotive pop undercurrent. These influences converge along with Sullivan’s forthcoming debut album, Saturnalia, out October twenty seventh. The document takes its identify from the “Saturn Return,” an astrological occasion signifying when Saturn comes again to the place it was in your chart once you have been born, signifying new development and maturation. Fittingly, Sullivan credit her personal Saturn Return because the catalyst for her personal musical ventures as Want Queen.

Final month, Sullivan shared “Magic,” the album’s first single, and right this moment she’s again with one other new single, “Grievances,” premiering with Below the Radar.

“Grievances” evokes a cautious stability of magnificence and confession, layering Sullivan’s longing reflections inside a heat mix of guitar, synths, and chiming harmonies. After starting as a solitary acoustic ballad, the monitor gently unfurls into an iridescent dream pop gem, glittering with inviting melodies however burnished with a wistful undertone. In the meantime, Sullivan’s lyrics discover that underlying discontent, laying naked the insecurities of residing and creating in a time when a lot feels futile: “Senseless shopper / Late nights on the pc / I want my pores and skin was smoother / I want I began sooner / Later bloomer / Do they suppose I’m a loser / And might you see proper by means of her? / You’re not who I assumed you have been.”

Sullivan says of the monitor, “‘Grievances’ was the primary tune I wrote on the album, however it was quite a bit totally different in its first iteration. The tune was first referred to as ‘Lengthy Drive’ and the tone was much more melancholic and gradual, extra acoustic. That first model is up on my YouTube web page, and it’s form of enjoyable to take heed to it now and see how a lot it has advanced as I’ve developed my voice as an artist. My producer, Ausytn Benyak actually helped me convey this tune to life in a approach that held onto that introspective sad-girl core, however with these enhanced daring and shimmering layers. I keep in mind strolling into his studio (which on the time was only a storage) and listening to the guitar and synths he’d laid down and considering, ‘What tune is that this? I adore it!’ And this new vitality form of hit us each and in that second I believe the entire course of the album modified.

This tune is de facto particular to me. It actually lays naked all my frustrations and insecurities in presenting myself as an artist, and expresses these emotions of hole dullness sitting together with your detrimental ideas can typically evoke. It felt like one thing I wanted to put in writing down with a purpose to transfer ahead. For a very long time, I advised myself it was too late to pursue music. I used to be obsessed about what individuals would suppose, if they’d take me severely, what criticism I might obtain. However then in the future I used to be similar to, ‘Fuck it’ and did it anyway. It turned much less for different individuals and one thing I simply needed to do for myself.”

Try the tune beneath. Saturnalia is out all over the place on October twenty seventh.