Navigating that transitional period from your teenage years into adulthood comes with a lot of upheaval and uncertainty. There’s a million and one stupid mistakes we’d love to take back, painful encounters we long to forget, inner voices we’d love to silence, and moments where we felt completely lost and out of our depth. All this metamorphosis comes at a time in our lives when our emotions burn at their brightest. Loving deeper, grieving harder, our anxiety at its most paralyzing; all of it swirling around at once. With it being such a pivotal time in shaping who we are as people, emotions which are felt this fiercely deserve to be expressed with the same level of passion. All across her debut EP, Yorkshire singer/songwriter Fiona-Lee finds strength in vulnerability. The candour of her lyricism confronting insecurities out in the open to rob them of their power, her voice resonating with meaning across moments of tenderness, ferocity and everything inbetween.

The slow burn of ‘Lavender’ details the balancing act of craving independence, while also clinging on to the love and support of a parent when the world becomes overwhelming, with the closing swell of saxophone feeling like the comforting embrace of a warm blanket. That same sax soars along on the breezy indie rocker ‘Through It All’ as Fiona navigates a friendship on the rocks, while the frank stream of consciousness lyrics on ‘When I Wake Up I’m Sad’ echoes the kind of doubts and insecurities that play on repeat in your head, unsure if any of them would let up with a little outside validation. ‘Mother‘ draws deeper from her own formative experiences and turns all the fear and frustration from a controlling former manager into defiant incandescent ire, while ‘To Make Me Feel Good’ ends her EP on a hopeful note, capturing a turning point in her struggles with body image and societal perceptions of beauty, with the buoyant frenetic drum work injecting heaps of positive energy into the mix. 

Yet the real defining moment of the EP is its title track. ‘Nothing Compares To Nineteen‘ – because what else can compare to the age that you lost a dear friend to suicide. A life changing upheaval all its own, dialling all the emotional tumult of this transitional period up to eleven. It makes all the forthright lyricism take on greater meaning. The whole EP becomes a reminder that we owe it to ourselves to process what we’re feeling instead of burying it, and we owe it to each other to acknowledge that we’re messy and confused, and just trying to navigate this life as best we can. Fiona-Lee’s remarkable first release charts a path around all the loss, confusion and growing pains, towards being one of the most cathartic and emotionally charged records you’ll hear this year.

Fiona-Lee’s debut EP Nothing Compare To Nineteen is out now, and is a must for fans of Sam Fender, Ellur and The Amazons.