Following her debut EP ‘Playing Pretend’, Edie Bens turns up the tempo and increases the pop on new single ‘Poster Child’. The Welsh singer-songwriter returns with another tale of broken love, this time dissecting the returning ex whose life is a shadow of their former self. Bens tells the story with her usual frank honesty and acerbic irony, in lyrics fanned into flame by an electro-pop soundtrack with a Countryfied edge. This gives the song a new-found energy which, when combined with her observational style, quells emotional intensity in favour of hard-nosed fact. The lines “Sat in the White Rose / You tell me that it’s fine / But you’re drinking like your father / And crying like a child” then become caustic rather than empathic, in such a way as to feel anger at the situation in the context of a wider social problem, where mental health remains a stigma, especially for men. This is what makes Edie Bens’ songwriting stand out from the crowd. ‘Poster Child’ isn’t so much a put-down as a reflection that speaks to something deeper.
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Featured Image (C) Edie Bens
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