Emmy Wildwood conjures strength from shambles on dreampop-infused "Everything Hurts"

Eschewing the club-worthy danceability of Wildwood’s 2014 debut, Mean Love, “Everything Hurts” trades in slicing guitar hooks, her gauzy vocals more indebted to dreampop than dance-pop. Wildwood’s voice exudes an agility where the slow drizzle of her verses is just as well-suited as the vibrato swells of her choruses.

Wildwood’s voice breaks each time her chorus crests at “When everything hurts” and “When we're at our worst”, embodying the shambles that coexist with the strength that she, and all women, eventually conjure to pull themselves out of their lives’ nadirs. ““Everything Hurts” is about the moment that survival instincts kick in during a crisis," explains Wildwood. "We're taught as women to constantly withstand everything in all of our relationships, romantic or otherwise, so things have to be really bad to get the strength to fight for fair treatment and justice. Because we're taught not to speak out, it's in those rock bottom situations that we tend to find or remember our power.”