Maisie Peters ‘Florescence’ Album review by Rob Johnson
Maisie Peters rose to prominence after busking on the streets of Brighton and then going viral on social media with early singles ‘Place We Were Made’ and ‘Birthday’. She subsequently signed to Ed Sheeran’s Gingerbread Records and found a wider audience after composing the soundtrack to AppleTV’s excellent comedy series Trying.
Peters’ third album Florescence sees the English singer-songwriter reflecting on turning 25 and finding love. ‘Mary Janes’ kicks things off with the immortal opening line, “I’ve never been the angel in the perfume ad” – a typically smart and self-deprecating lyric, before the song recalls a blossoming of true love that has enabled her to see past her perceived physical flaws into acceptance. ‘Audrey Hepburn’ continues this theme of acceptance with Peters intoning ‘I wanted to be immortal, now I’m fine with growing old’. It speaks of an artist at peace with their place in the world.
That’s not to say that this third record is a total departure from the scorned lover of the first two records with ‘Say My Name in Your Sleep’, co-written with Marcus Mumford, hoping that her former lover still thinks of her. ‘Old Fashioned’ is even more scathing with Peters imagining a former lover ‘in a dive bar, with a girl so pink’ before later describing him as ‘barbaric’ before finishing with the ultimate kiss off, ‘I wish you’d never happened’. It’s the angriest and best track on the album.
‘Kingmaker’, a duet with Julia Michaels, is sonically unimaginative but lyrically excellent with Peters calling out someone’s ‘weird behaviour’. The acerbic, confessional lyrics recall Taylor Swift at her most excoriating and while Swift, a huge influence here, does loom large over the record, Peters’ inherent Britishness and the grit that comes with that puts her lyrically more akin to CMAT or even Self Esteem. You can imagine the latter penning the line ‘I tried the sweet boys and the deep boys and they were all full of sh*t’ which appears on the stirring crescendo of ‘Vampire Time’.
Aside from ‘Old Fashioned’, ‘My Regards’ is probably the next best track on the album. Peters set out to write a country-inflected pop song in the style of Tammy Wynette’s ‘Stand by Your Man’ but as a strong, modern woman rather than a ‘simpering love interest’. It’s wonderful. Unfortunately, as there isn’t much sonic diversity here, the album peters out (no pun intended) somewhat with ‘You You You’, ‘If You Let Me’ and final track, ‘Nothing Like Being in Love’ all pretty forgettable, and there is a nagging feeling that 15 songs is perhaps too many for an album within the indie-pop genre. Overall, however, Florescence is an assured, spiky and heartfelt record that places Peters in the top bracket of confessional singer-songwriters alongside Swift, Olivia Rodrigo and Chappell Roan. Stardom awaits.
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