Annabel RossJuly 17, 2026 — 5:30amDaughter from Hell by Gracie Abrams: three albums in, the 26-year-old’s confessional folk-pop has grown stale.Gracie Abrams, Daughter from Hell★★Having Taylor Swift as a mentor can be a double-edged sword – just ask Olivia Rodrigo, apparently still on frosty terms with the billionaire following an acrimonious dispute over songwriting credits. You couldn’t ask for more exposure than opening for Swift, as Abrams did on the Eras tour in the US. At the same time, close proximity to such an obvious influence reinforces the impression that Abrams is – unlike Rodrigo – yet to establish her own distinctive sound.Where there was some bite on 2024’s The Secret of Us (co-written by Abrams’ incisive bestie Audrey Hobert, now an emerging star herself), Abrams’ third album Daughter from Hell sounds tepid and toothless (its sole collaboration with Hobert, Minibar, is an outlier). Sixteen songs is a demanding ask of your average listener these days. On an acoustic folk album with minimal tonal variation, it feels more like a dirge.Since her album-length EP was released in 2021, Abrams has worked closely with Aaron Dessner of The National, who has also produced for Mumford & Sons, Noah Kahan, and extensively for Taylor Swift (most notably on 2020’s Folklore).At this point, Dessner’s signature palette – muted acoustics, finger-picking guitars, gentle piano – feels more like a background template, his clients’ personalities blurred and buried under a shroud of autumnal textures.Abrams, who shot to pop stardom despite “nepo baby” accusations and tabloid focus on her love life, gets caught in fifty shades of beige on her new album.NYTTwo of his favoured collaborators, both of whom have teamed up with Abrams before, appear on this album and add little. Justin Vernon, aka Bon Iver, sings on Broke My Heart and Humming and Marcus Mumford duets with Abrams on the twee What If It’s right, both restrained accompaniments in different shades of beige.Heavy with reverb-drenched guitars, the title track at least sounds substantial but it’s far less revealing than its name promises. If a teen Abrams was “brutal” to her parents, as suggested in interviews, there are no tantalising tales of waywardness in what amounts to an admiring tribute to her mother.Somewhat gamely, in light of the “nepo baby” accusations that have plagued Abrams from the beginning (her father is filmmaker J.J. Abrams, her mother is TV executive Katie McGrath), Humming references the Los Angeles wildfires of January 2025 that disproportionately affected wealthy celebrities. “Every kid I grew up with has lost their childhood house,” Abrams sings. “Do you stay numb? But you can’t when you see how they all get off on our grieving.”On Look at My Life (a slightly peppier song co-produced by Rodrigo’s main magic-maker, Dan Nigro), she further challenges preconceptions about her charmed existence, confessing that “it’s kind of a bad time.”Privilege aside, Abrams is convincing when she sings, “I got what I wanted, it doesn’t sit right,” while Hit the Wall exposes more serious angst, describing “a room full of doctors and an inkblot” and issuing a warning that “sooner or later you’ll find out/I live in a pattern of breakdowns”.Most intriguing of all is a track called Death Wish. If you were to entertain the idea that Abrams and Swift might be having a rift of their own (Abrams’ recent Instagram post featuring a selfie from Swift’s wedding and Swift’s ex Joe Alwyn in the same photo carousel has scandalised Swifties), its lyrics could feasibly lend weight to that theory.Abrams’ music career began on Instagram, where raw acoustic versions of her earliest songs drew praise from stars including Swift, Lorde, Rodrigo and Phoebe Bridgers. She sings well live, plays piano and guitar, and is capable of emotional resonance.But Daughter from Hell sounds more like the soundtrack to a Nicholas Sparks adaptation than a bold artistic statement, an anonymous waft of confessional indie-folk in a landscape crowded with breathy-voiced songstresses.Three albums in, Abrams’ point of difference feels increasingly unclear.To read more from Spectrum, visit our page here.Get the day’s breaking news, entertainment ideas and a long read to enjoy. Sign up to receive our Evening Edition newsletter.From our partners