The indie-pop musician Anna Burch was born for the spotlight; it just took several attempts to get there. After singing in the folk-rock band Frontier Ruckus, co-fronting the indie-rock act Failed Flowers, and joining other Michigan projects in her spare time, the Detroit singer-songwriter makes her solo debut with Quit the Curse, a record of wry one-liners and moody indie pop. Every track on the record is marked by fuzzy guitar hooks and 1960s-flavored girl-group harmonies—a bold step forward from her folk background.
The years Burch spent performing in bands—learning to complement a fellow guitarist’s melody, blending her voice with other singers, and other quintessential hive-mind tricks—have clearly guided her along the way to becoming her own bandleader. A song like “Tea-Soaked Letter” gives the illusion that she’s a naturally gifted songwriter: Guitar strums descend in a satisfying progression, vocal harmonies never falter, and every melody feels familiar yet fresh. According to Burch, however, it’s been a process of revision and relearning, as she never properly studied songwriting until her late twenties.
Burch is at her best when she tries her hand at what sound like alt-rock singles from the 1990s. Like Juliana Hatfield and Liz Phair, Burch has a knack for complex chord changes and personable delivery, the kind that tempts you to blast her music in the car as an inexpensive form of therapy. That’s particularly true of the malaise-ridden “Asking 4 a Friend,” a drug-dealer love story that nods to the Lemonheads’ “My Drug Buddy.” The snarky annoyance and dissonant guitar give her deadpan delivery an extra push. On opener “2 Cool 2 Care” and closing ballad “With You Every Day,” Burch tackles vintage beach-pop in the vein of Alvvays. Even as she doubles down on guitar and vocal tricks, Burch avoids over-saturating her carefree pop songs.
Even as Burch reinvents herself, she doesn’t entirely let go of her folk-rock past, particularly on the album’s second half. Though soothing, a half-baked guitar chord progression in “What I Want” and the ambling pedal-steel whine in “Belle Isle” sound dull when compared to her sharper hooks. Burch has admitted that a handful of the songs felt “stiff and stilted” when she demoed them. That’s why she sent them to engineer Collin Dupuis—his work with Angel Olsen and Lana Del Rey got Burch's attention—who gave her tips for re-recording them. But some songs, like the title track, still don't sound particularly lively.
Come the end, Quit the Curse reveals itself to be a window to watching a songwriter grow. Singing about unfulfilled romantic desires, she packs in enough self-awareness to mock the melodramatic format. Distinguished by her sure-footed stride, Quit the Curse sounds like an album by an artist who at last knows where she’s going.
