Ellie Bleach fleshes out the story of doomsday prepper "Pamela"

Her first release since her 2022 debut EP, No Elegant Way To Sell Out, “Pamela” is a slick refinement of Ellie Bleach’s penchant for acerbic narratives, vivid characterisation, and razor-sharp cuts of surreal reality. Essex-born, London-based, Ellie’s music revolves around her curated cast of lyrical characters, each one deftly crafted with kitchen-sink poetry and each given a theme song of perfectly evocative laidback indie bliss.

On “Pamela”, Ellie draws on a little of herself, injecting a micro-dose of true life, as she reminisces: “I remember summers in Essex, hotter and drier than Texas.” She quickly segues and escapes to the Middle America, Don’t Worry Darling-esque stage set for today’s performance, but the hint at home is a genius drop of depth. While her lyrics are melodramatic and dynamic - “Armageddon never looked so good, “ she croons - its musical backdrop is lilting and shimmering, packed with vintage flourishes like the liquid guitars in the bridge and the steady, American stomp of the beat.

Maybe it’s Ellie Bleach’s dexterous, measured vocal performance that make the tale of such an oddball, charismatic person feel breezy, but she delivers her descriptions with an objective, omniscient narrator’s perspective. We get a bird’s-eye view of the action, but her masterful writing means we also feel totally immersed.

"As the new arrival in small town suburbia, an axe-wielding doomsday prepper in fishnets and high heels, the song’s as much about the local hysteria she’s causing as it is about Pamela herself,” Ellie shares by way of a blurb. “As the residents gawk with lust and disgust, I see her embodying the ‘spiritual bimbo’ archetype – hot enough to be desired, but too strange to be accepted. This is my exploration of apocalypse anxiety without being a direct statement on climate change, it’s a snapshot of the ambient dread often felt by my generation told through an unlikely prophet”.