Abbie Ozard – everything still worries me

Stepping away from the programmed instrumentation of her early bedroom pop efforts, Mancunian singer-songwriter Abbie Ozard has enlisted Pale Waves’ Hugo Silvani as a collaborator on her debut album, everything still worries me. The result is a more energetic pop sound and a bright 13-track album designed for live performance. There are shades of noughties indie twee in Ozard’s conversational storytelling style. i miss it when we were just friends is charmingly child-like, a woozy end-of-the-night acoustic ballad about regret packaged hopefully thanks to Ozard’s syrupy vocals.

The album’s cacophonous closing track, think for yourself, is a layered wall-of-sound number featuring clips from a self-improvement audiobook ('Close your eyes and picture your happy place,' it begins) overlapping with computer sounds, drums, electric guitars and lyrics about morning routines and manifestations. It creates a trippy sensory overload that mimics the modern world as Ozard presents it – as a place that is both isolating and frighteningly connected. Still, there’s a glint of positivity in the youthful cinema of Ozard’s lyrics. This is particularly true on the sunny and addictive miss american dream, an open-hearted song about girlhood and wide-eyed admiration.

Listen to: I miss it when we were just friends, miss american dream, days like these