GERD – More Water Than Anything

It doesn't take long before "More Water Than Anything" shows what GERD is after. This is not an album that settles for finding a nice sound and then staying there. The songs twist, grow in unexpected directions, and sometimes leave the ground entirely. The result is an album that feels both meticulously constructed and strangely unbound.

And above all: it's really good.

On her second album, GERD sounds significantly less interested in what usually works and much more interested in what happens when she follows an idea until it almost breaks.

It suits her.

Electronic sounds meet strings, large rhythmic sections, airy spaces, and details that suddenly change the entire feeling of a song. There is pop here, absolutely, but "More Water Than Anything" rarely behaves like a typical pop record. Choruses don't always come where you expect them, and the arrangements always seem to be heading somewhere else.

That unpredictability becomes one of the album's greatest strengths.

When control starts to slip

"Love Economy" is a good example. The harmonics move in a way that means the song never really lands where the ear expects. Instead, a slightly unsettling tension builds up, as if something is always lurking just behind the music.

This also fits the conflict in the lyrics.

GERD has described the song as a meeting with that side of oneself one would rather avoid confronting:

"It’s like facing the part of yourself you don’t really want to see."

That feeling recurs throughout the album. Not necessarily as a clear theme, but as an atmosphere. Something is chafing even when the music is at its most beautiful.

The same thing happens in "Truth To Be Told," where GERD lets stranger impulses take place without trying to tidy them up afterwards. There is a freedom in that, which makes the album enjoyable to return to. Small details that initially feel odd start to feel completely natural after a few listens.

"Crazy" lives up to its name

"More Water Than Anything" is at its best when GERD lets order and chaos fight for the same space.

"Crazy" is perhaps the clearest example. It starts out relatively composed but changes step by step until the feeling of control has almost disappeared. It’s not chaos for chaos’s sake. Rather, it’s as if the song slowly turns up the pulse and refuses to stop when it reaches a comfortable level.

GERD herself says:

"In the end, we can lose our heads, together."

And yes, that’s about how it feels.

Here it’s also clear how much she thinks of music as something physical. This is an album meant to be played loud. The bass and rhythms have a weight that makes several songs feel built as much for the body as for headphones.

This gives the album an important counterbalance to all the brooding.

"Hurts" doesn't need to scream

The first single "Hurts" shows another side of the album.

Here the drama is more in the anticipation of catastrophe than in the explosion itself. The song revolves around that uncomfortable moment when you already realize a relationship is ending, but still try to spend a few seconds behind the insight.

GERD describes it as standing just before "the floor gives way."

This is also one of her great strengths as an artist. She doesn’t always need to go all the way to maximum drama for something to feel big. She is just as effective when she holds back and lets the tension do the work.

An album that grows

There are plenty of artists who can create grand moments. Far fewer manage to do so without the music starting to feel overloaded.

GERD gets away with it because she also understands the value of empty space.

When the productions swell, there is almost always something holding back. When a song gets dense, a hole suddenly opens up. When a melody feels safe, a detail appears to upset the balance.

This means that "More Water Than Anything" keeps evolving even after the first few listens.

And that is perhaps the album’s biggest quality.

This is not an album where everything should be understood immediately. On the contrary. Some of the best parts are those that first feel a bit misplaced and then, three listens later, prove to be exactly what made the song interesting.

The only thing that really keeps "More Water Than Anything" from a perfect top score is that the enormous wealth of ideas sometimes makes the entirety almost too dense. Some moments could have benefitted from a little more space.

But that’s a rather pleasant problem to have.

Because above all, this is the sound of an artist who dares to make her music bigger, weirder, and less predictable.

With "More Water Than Anything," GERD takes a considerable step forward. Not by smoothing away her idiosyncrasies, but by giving them even more space.

And that’s exactly when the album is at its best.