VICTORIA CANAL — ‘SLOWLY, IT DAWNS’

Writer’s Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Despite having released her first single back in 2015, Victoria Canal is an artist I only discovered last year. Nine times out of ten that’d make me late to the party but discovering her when I did felt like I was still, somehow buying stock early.

The release ‘June Baby’, a song written with the help of The 1975’s Ross MacDonald and produced with the help of his bandmate George Daniel, was where I discovered her for the first time. I opened Instagram, saw Ross celebrating the song’s release and then jumped back to Spotify to give it a listen before instantly getting hooked. The quiet, contemplative lyrics and tender vocal deliveries contrasted perfectly with the song’s overall sounds. Upon a first listen we hear a summery, feel good, breezy instrumental with an endlessly catchy chorus but when you peel the lyrics back it is so much more. It is a near perfect indie-pop song and I can’t imagine a better place to begin my journey as a fan of Victoria Canal than here.

‘June Baby’, along with the other singles released ahead of the album ‘California Sober’, ‘Cake’, ‘15%’ and ‘Vauxhall’ make up five of the first six songs we hear on this album and it really frontloads the record with some heavy hitters. From the rest of these singles released, the undoubted highlight is ‘Cake’. Unlike the rest of the album which is built on quiet introspection, ‘Cake’ offers a different side to Victoria Canal we haven’t heard on this record and we don’t hear again. A quicker and groovier number than anything else on the record, we hear her sing about a night out and all the feelings that she’s trying to suppress by heading out. As she sings “Fuck the cake, let’s go straight to the vodka, we don’t ever have to think about the cracks in the machines,” you get a sense for why a lot of the backing track of this song has such a tense feel to it. It may be the only track of its kind on here, but ‘Cake’ is a massive standout.

The rest of the album returns to her usual, dreamy, indie-pop self but what really stands out here is her writing. Whether it’s songs like ‘How Can I Be A Person’, a heartbreaking song where we hear her reflect on her insecurities and going through life as she “dies of comparison” when thinking of another girl, or if it’s the album’s penultimate track ‘Black Swan’ where she deals with her own place within her circle and how she tends to see herself as the outsider, we get to hear her carefully and poignantly break down her own life in her head. We listen as she lets us take a peek behind the curtain into her life, we’re invited in to hear about everything going right or wrong for her as she rounds out a fantastic album.

Slowly, It Dawns is a special album for a truly special artist. Everything here from the production to the writing to the vocals works perfectly to create a near perfect debut album from an artist we should all be keeping an eye on. From the joyous, sun soaked opening of ‘June Baby’ to the sombre closing notes of ‘swan song’ this is an album that’s made an immediate impact on me and I imagine if you go to listen to it now it’ll do the same to you. A tremendous, complex, haunting and inspiring album from one of music’s most exciting new acts.