On the Minnesota-based singer-songwriter’s third studio album, Samia deconstructs her own ideas of womanhood amidst the backdrop of a world which is categorizing, limiting, and standardizing gender.
Samia has admitted in several interviews to her previous failures as a feminist, to constructing an image and a personality in service of her imagined expectations of the men around her. Despite many of her previous songs exploring her experiences of toxic relationships, social pressure and sexual violence, it is here on Bloodless that the singer-songwriter finally challenges herself within this context. She confronts her own ideals of emptiness and her tendency to change for the men in her life, unlearning her understanding of womanhood as survival. Armed with Judith Butler essays and taking aim at herself and our society, Samia arrives at self-acceptance in the absence of ideals.
Her songs have always begun as poetry, but the evolution of her writing on Bloodless will be evident for any fans of Samia’s discography. Where her lyrics have previously bounced back and forth between intellectual streams-of-consciousness, extended anecdotes and simpler, catchy hooks, her writing here is more refined and pointed. Each line on Bloodless feels essential, delving into intriguing metaphors which explores the album’s themes. On the lead single and opener 'Bovine Excision', Samia explores the phenomena of cattle mutilation where livestock have been found with certain organs, often their genitals, removed and their bodies’ drained bloodless. It is a gruesome topic which she likens to her own experience of gender and the allure of emptiness, and a captivating introduction to an album which returns to the imagery of blood across its track list.
On 'Carousel' Samia reflects on getting caught up in her relationships, the slow building first half providing my favourite lyric on the album: “I wanna hitch my fire to your candle”. It’s a sweet confession of love for her partner, and a troubling instance of Samia attaching herself and her values to another person’s perception. This embodiment of the album’s themes around performative womanhood is contrasted by the formidable guitars on the second half of the song, its intensity collapsing into 'Proof', the album’s most stripped-back and vulnerable track. Laying bare the failings of the men she has dated and their effects on the women around them, she crystallises this feeling into the devastating but cathartic lyric: “you don’t know me, bitch”.
The sonic versatility of the album’s instrumentals is a testament to artistic growth beyond her lyrics, synthesizing the compositional risk of 2023’s Honey into the most richly textured and detailed arrangements of her career. Samia’s long-term producers crucially centre the album’s intimate/ethereal production dichotomy on her sharp lyrics and evocative vocals, with every line on Bloodless contributing to Samia’s painful reconstruction of herself. The album is truly personal, deeply thematic and beautifully poetic, consolidating Samia’s place as one of the most exciting and noteworthy singer-songwriters of our time and certainly my personal favourite.