Bria Salmena comes out on top on Big Dog

Some of the best breakout contemporary voices, like those of Caroline Polachek, Weyes Blood, or SPELLLING swirl and enchant. For Bria Salmena, it can communicate something deadly, a gnawing and insatiable hunger.

On “Stretch The Struggle”, the most striking song off her enchanting debut album Big Dog, she starts solidly, but then wavers as her desire turns visceral and raw. “I just need it, need it, need it,” she repeats, but instead of a person she’s after, it’s a wound: the hurt of someone leaving her, the pain of “something to suck on.” With the screaming comes freedom – it’s there you realize Salmena’s game isn’t purely simplistic.

It’s not the only unconventional choice on Big Dog, but it’s one of the most tantalizing. Salmena, originally frontwoman of the band FRIGS, shapeshifts almost unrecognizably to diversify her sonic palette. There’s the lightness of indie rock cut “Backs Of Birds”, where there’s a freedom on the chorus before tilting into the pitched-down chant leading to the final minute, a grittiness returned to on “Rags.” The playfulness of “Hammer” and melancholy of “Water Melancholy” contrast with “See’er”, a dramatic and often haunting alt-country cut where Salmena moans, creaks, and improvs her way through murky terrain. Often it feels much longer than its 4-minute runtime, and could easily find a home amongst the depths of Ethel Cain’s Preacher’s Daughter.

Salmena complements up her vocal chords with a pretty powerful pen. She has the grit of Cain with the romance of Lana Del Rey, along with a knack for the beauty of a simple moment. “Words are just things to say / Just sounds his mouth makes / I didn’t get on the plane / I just stared at the runway”, she sings with hope on the opener “Drastic.” Best of all, she isn’t one to overcomplicate things; many songs rely on a few cutting lines, repeated, chopped, and amplified: You are a hammer, you are a big dog, you are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, writing in twilight again – some of the key loops on Big Dog plead, reaching out towards you through repetition, like a wake-up call.

We don’t learn who Salmena is through pieced together narratives, but through fleeing, intense feelings, almost as a call-out to the rising confessional genre that praises wordy, detail-laden tracks. “You contain memories / I’d like to consume,” she sings on “Hammer”, knowing it’s better to leave the blanks empty rather than constrain the moment to her experience. She’s amorphous on “Rags”, reckoning with her intertwined desires, begging to be dressed in shoddy clothes, but wearing pearls. “Treat me like I’m putty, treat me like I’ll slip away,” she sings, disarmingly simple.

Her softer moments might be more staggering than when she really lets loose. The opening lines of “Peanut” are pretty simple – “You’re on a train to Japan / I’m forgetting who I am” – but when paired with the bare piano, it takes on a devastating tone. The guitar loop on “Twilight” too, soft and nostalgic, is killer along with her reflective singing, like a doubly effective combo: “By the time the spring came, I was well on my way / Count your blessings, but it means nothing to me.” And “Water Memory” takes it back to the source – it’s vague and lilting, along with some salient images. “The hand reaches / For hollow cheeks”; “Be still, he calls now / Be still, you stay”, she sings, like a horror film.

Big Dog is often hypnotic and always entertaining. It’s a record that never asks for permission before lashing out, just springs the moment on you. Unruly and raw, Salmena’s debut has a killer instinct and a romantic eye. It’s one to sit with for a while.