Misty Miller is a nineteen-year-old London born singer-songwriter, who creates an industrial, raw brand of indie-rock
By Patrick Cash
In the likes of her recent single ‘Taxi Cab’, complete with cannibals-on-a-night-bus video, you can hear clear resonances of Patti Smith who Miller freely admits to being influenced by on her website. But it was when trawling through Miller’s Soundcloud that I discovered her hidden gem, a beautifully constructed song that sounds like very little else out there: a demo named ‘Petrified’.
A ballad that’s too edgy to be a ballad, the track begins with Miller’s white noise tainted vocals sing-song murmuring over a collation of guitar twangs. It has an air of early 60s songstresses, the tragic live fast of Janis Joplin, or the experimental melody of Joni Mitchell. But as well as the strange, shadowy but inveigling sound, Miller’s lyrics strike a simple chord of emotional honesty.
‘Wanna know the truth?’ she begins, ‘I’m so scared / I’m so scared / Of you.’ She builds upon this throat-catching admission of vulnerability without falling into the trap of blinkered self-pity. ‘So I need to be more brave, stop trying to save myself,’ she sings. ‘I’m petrified by you… So baby listen up / I’m not that tough / And I think we lost their trust / When we were fools.’
It’s at the 1:54 build in this short 3 minute track that the real power of the song soars through, as the full potency of Miller’s impressive voice streams up onto the next level, full of sorrow and pathos. ‘Oh I’m waiting for the taking now / But you don’t know how,’ she croons, ‘the sheets are burning / The love I’m learning now / I’ve got mean freedom creeping out.’ As the vocals soar and rise over these lyrics, it’s a hairs on the back of the neck moment.
If you want to attempt denying the existence of sadness in the world by listening exclusively to Kylie on repeat, this isn’t the music for you. And it’s hardly a track you’d slam on to get the party started. Yet what Miller has achieved here is a track of raw truth and beauty that will surely affect and move most of its listeners.
