Margaret Sohn, also known as Miss Grit, confronts impostor syndrome, Midwest living, the benefits and annoyances of technology, and more on her second EP Impostor. Even the cover art shows her unease with being in the spotlight. She’s actually trying to hide behind it.
I’m here to tell her that there’s no need for that, because Impostor is a nice piece of work. Opening track “Don’t Wander” is like something you’d hear while in orbit and has hard-hitting, simple lyrics like “There’s no more reward for winning. There’s a bigger toll for missing.” Sohn’s guitar on “Buy the Banter” is fuzzed and funky while Gregory Tock‘s drums are solid drops like heavy, scattered rainfall. The song is a brutal wake-up call to anyone who seeks power (“If you think you’re somebody, you’ll have to prove you’ve got what they want, and they want.”).
“Blonde” is a sad tale of Sohn confronting identity issues as a half-Korean woman growing up in a majority Caucasian Michigan town. Zoltan Sindhu‘s bass line on the track is a deceptive one, lulling you into a warm groove before the track blooms / bursts into a fuzzed-out fireworks display. Sohn’s guitar prowess is on full display on “Grow Up To,” with plenty of shredding and arena-ready riffs.
“Dark Side of the Party” is a great track, with Sohn mixing guitars and synths well and singing about being stuck at a party full of people who, on the surface, appear to be sure of themselves, but who are actually as frightened as her (or more so) of being discovered as an impostor. The title track ends the album, bubbling with hard rock guitars before simmering with ambient synths to drift us out into the world again, ready to face our own doubts with a little more confidence.
Keep your mind open.
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[Thanks to Jim and Jessica at Pitch Perfect PR.]
