Molly O'Malley

Solo projects are often an excuse to reveal an individual’s heart lines. For Louisville songwriter Molly O’Malley, hers are tangled and complex, the kind that evolve as her world unfurls and complicates around her bedroom. It’s in that bedroom where her sophomore EP there’s always more show formed. And as much as O’Malley self-describes her translucent indie-rock as “for people who don’t want to leave their bedrooms,” there’s a nuance and relatability to what she offers that may cause her to leave hers after all.

O’Malley wrote every instrumental take, marking this a true solo outing. Her confidence shines through on “Leetlow,” a rollicking slow burn of a track that builds on stormy chords and her trademark Wurlitzer. Other moments, like the couchstuck ode “I Wanna Go Home,” gain their heft and glimmer from gutsy vocal performances. O’Malley returns again and again to the intersection between meandering bedroom pop and soulful warmth. Despite this swagger, O’Malley tackles the indecisiveness, guilt, and caution that come with relationships in painstaking detail. “Hello Kitty Radio” unpacks the uneasy revelations that come with child abuse, and “Leetlow” gets much of its darkness from the toxic relationship it depicts. In her world, there are no happy endings to these stories, just hard lessons to take on another journey.
-James Cassar