Brye - "Recover"
On the cusp of greatness
Brye1 is an up-and-coming pop icon. I’m calling her shot for her. I’ve been on her hype train for a whole year now, after her Dream Girl EP2 made a deep impression in 2022, making my Top 40 list despite its brevity.
Brye is the underdog pop star we’re looking for. She’s the ultimate “indie”. Because even with a budget of nothing, she’s creating incredible songs with depth and complexity. Her lyricism is frequently mind-blowing. And she is already a talented and emotive vocalist. And she’s only 19.
She has almost half of a million monthly listeners on Spotify. No label. No budget. And she’s only 19.
Recover opens with its title track, which is an excellent example of Brye’s talents. With strong first-person lyricism, excellent vocal work, and complex composition layered with simple elements — vocals, guitar, and electronic programming. And this is exactly the reason I’ve fallen in love with her music: she’s doing it all herself, but the compositions are incredibly deep. Brye is her own producer, and she’s so very good at it.
“Recover” is the opening track for the album, but also the start of a three-song movement focusing on body positivity and pushing back against the traditional trend of fat-shaming women who are literally just existing. “Diet Culture” is the album’s lead single, which went viral on TikTok. It, too, features strong writing at the beginning, but I feel that the mantra which takes over the end of the song is a bit too on-the-nose. I see what she’s doing, but I don’t love it as a lyrical approach. “Nothing!” rounds out this first third of the album, and it deals more directly with addressing the haters — both external and internal.
In this early section of the album, the cohesion is present and palpable. Starting with track 4, “Ode to a Recession”, the album begins branching out. “Ode to a Recession” addresses the financial uncertainty which has become an existential crisis for younger Americans and how it affects our life decisions; “It’s About You” is addressed to an old ex, Taylor Swift style, but with a more Olivia Rodrigo vibe; “Ageless” is about how society perceives its young women and, specifically, fetishizes youth.
In short, the cohesion falls apart. The broader concept of recovering from various traumas still applies to many songs, but not all.
Recover also features Brye’s first featured artist, fellow TikTokker Addison Grace, on “Jenna”, which proves to be one of the album’s best tracks, and one of only two that doesn’t seem to be addressing some social ill (the other being “It’s About You”).
There’s really no bad song here. It’s all really solid. However, it also doesn’t feel like the step forward that I was hoping for after Dream Girl. Some songs feel like they might involve additional personnel (not including Addison Grace’s contribution), but about half of the album doesn’t feel like it matches up to the quality on Dream Girl. Further, the average length of the tracks on Recover is about 40 seconds less, at only two-and-a-half minutes. I want to languish in these harmonic soundscapes, and they just end.
More than anything, Brye needs a budget. She also needs to be wholly in charge of her own music, because she’s already killing it. Get her a budget and some backing musicians, and I guarantee she’ll be winning awards.
Rating: Teal Green
Pronounced “bree”, like the cheese. I was unsure of this until I found a video where she introduces herself.
Yes, apparently. I don’t review EPs, but this one was labeled as an “album” on Spotify, so I reviewed it. And now Recover is being flagged as her debut album. The really confusing thing about this is that Recover is shorter by 2 minutes. Guess I’m here, though.