Whereas some 21-year-olds are trying to find their sound, Faye Webster shows wisdom beyond her years with her third album Atlanta Millionaires Club. The album abolishes genre rules and finds itself somewhere along the intersection of alt-country, indie-folk and R&B. Love and heartbreak might be a theme that appears often in music, but it's rare to find someone who approaches it as masterfully as Webster does. Across the duration of ten tracks, she explores longing and heartbreak through a series of absorbing and heartfelt words.
As you listen to Atlanta Millionaires Club, you can picture Webster gazing from her window with a journal and a pen in her hand. Something that's prevalent across the album is the use of repetition — often, lyrics are repeated and this adds emotional weight to the phrases she repeats. The album's opener, 'Room Temperature', which is led by a pedal steel guitar, repeats the words "I should get out more". On the following track 'Right Side of My Neck', it's the words "The right side of my neck still smells like you," that we hear. As the album progresses, 'Kingston' features repetition of the words, "Baby tell me where you want to go / Baby, tell me what you wanna know." This ensures that what she feels is also engraved in the minds of listeners.
The heavy words of Atlanta Millionaires Club appear as if they were off the pages of her diary. The angst rising behind her lyrics is profound and moving. Many of the songs on the album will transport you to the feeling of laying in bed late at night when you're lost in your thoughts — on 'Hurts Me Too', she sings "I hate that feeling at night when I thought my eyes were close / But they were open the whole time, it was just too dark to see."
Her tender track 'Kingston' will fill you with an unavoidable swell of emotions, especially with lyrics like, "I think that tonight I'll leave my light on / 'Cause I get lonely when it's out / And I miss you right about now."
There's not one defining sound on the album, and much to Webster's credit, she lets her emotions guide the sounds we hear. The album has a clear old-school Southern R&B influence, but instead of forcing the album to marry under one sound, she experiments with wherever the song takes her, which only adds to the fervent feelings burning underneath her words. Songs like 'Pigeon' and 'Come to Atlanta' have Jazz-inspired undertones, whereas 'What Used to Be Mine' has alt-country roots. She's able to mix contrasting styles and sounds without it becoming disorderly.
'Flowers' (featuring Father) is an exquisite offering when placed on its own, but it's mildly disruptive to the album's flow — despite this, 'Flowers' is still an excellent song, even if it feels misplaced on the album. The ending 'Jonny (Reprise)', which features a spoken word passage by Webster, brings the album full circle, leaving listeners fully satisfied.
Atlanta Millionaires Club is an intimate and poetic exploration of yearning and passion — Webster has crafted a masterpiece and it's no surprise that it's already being hailed as one of the best albums of the year.
Written by Amy Smolcic (@amysmolcic)
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