Singer-Songwriter Petal Captures the Anxiety of Being

Petal’s sophomore LP Magic Gone sounds like what being an introvert feels like: A crusty exterior is armor for protecting an overly sensitive heart. Standoffishness is a front for anxiety over social interaction. Intensity is both a constant and a norm. Likewise, Petal — the moniker for Philadelphia-based singer-songwriter Kiley Lotz — shelters the exposed nerves of Magic Gone with a tough outer shell.

Magic Gone opens like this, with two songs that don’t sound at all like the rest of the album. Musically (if not necessarily lyrically), the relative sonic aggression of “Better Than You” and Tightrope” serve as the first wall of defense for the rest of Magic Gone.

These songs are a ruse, though. “I’m Sorry” eases the transition, as Lotz’s vocals confidently carry her anonymous apologies over a thick, almost grungy outro, but once the first sweet notes of Lotz’s voice trickle out of speakers to begin “Comfort,” Petal begins to emerge as something else entirely.

Lotz shines brightest in her barest songs — those with just a slightly distorted electric guitar strum or weighty piano chords hanging beneath her impressive soprano. Because when Lotz dials back the volume, pace, and fuzz, her vocal timbre and poetic lyrics cut even deeper. In “Comfort,” for example, she’s able to deliver harsh lines like “And you could barely drive when I said, ‘I don’t fucking care anymore’” with the softness of a cotton ball. But Lotz manages to tell complete vignettes of experience in her three-minute songs, as exemplified by the rest of the chorus: “I don’t see the point in lying for what I’m only tearing apart./And you could barely speak when I saw your reflection in the windshield fall in a space I know too well,/that I am not your comfort anymore.”

Later, Lotz echoes that line (“I don’t care anymore”) and sentiment of ambivalence on the penultimate track, the solo-piano ballad “Something From Me.” And the closing “Stardust” carries some of Lotz’s most visceral, yet utterly normal lyrics: “Now we’re living in shitty apartments with mismatched dishes, unlike our parents./Maybe we’d make good parents?/Maybe not, I can’t say…/I can’t say I didn’t love you.”

Lotz noted in her own description of Magic Gone that the album is divided into two halves. Side A (“Better Than You” through “Shy”) is subtitled “Tightrope Walker” and includes the songs she wrote before entering treatment for panic disorders and depression. Side B (“Magic Gone” through “Stardust”), called “Miracle Clinger,” represents songs she wrote in recovery. But no matter the framework listeners choose to interpret Magic Gone, Petal manages to capture the everyday anxiety of being with grace.