As a certain IKEA couch will tell you, it’s notoriously complicated for queer people in heteronormative relationships to express their identity. If you’re Miya Folick, you dedicate your third album, Erotica Veronica, to navigating that very neurosis. While dating a cis man, Folick developed a record that honored the sides of herself not present with her partner. Fitting a more introspective album, she deviated from her previous production-heavy records and recorded live with a variety of Los Angeles musicians like Meg Duffy of Hand Habits and Perfume Genius collaborator Greg Uhlmann. Erotica Veronica tries to integrate all her disparate longings and experiences into a unified whole. The insular, small-scale sound and songwriting holds the record back from truly being the “psychosensual masterstroke” described in press materials, though it’s often fascinating in its own right.
The album’s concept peaks in its opening moments. On “Erotica,” Folick thinks about flirting with women on the street; on “La Da Da,” she confesses to her loving stoner boyfriend that she has “sapphic fantasies” while they’re in bed together. There’s no thought for how a woman might react to flirtation from someone already committed, little consideration for how the guy must feel when his girlfriend yearns for something he can’t provide—Folick’s pure id makes these songs so captivating. They are gorgeous but uncomfortable, quietly revelling in small transgressions atop dreamy, reverberating choruses.
The rest of the album can’t maintain that intrigue, lapsing into vague cosmic imagery on “Prism of Light” and “Hypergiant” (“The glow of your spirit/Is a hypergiant/And it smiles with defiant happiness”); Erotica Veronica is best by far when developing the themes of its opening tracks. On “Hate Me,” Folick realizes she’s losing herself in relationships no matter what gender she dates, and speaks up: “Spill me on concrete/Throw me in grass/Just let me keep my name.” The introspection gives would-be clichés more weight, like the dramatic irony of Folick telling an avoidant lover that “you’re one half with me and one half missing” on “This Time Around,” knowing a big piece of her is missing in the relationship, too.
The straightforward production is at odds with the genuinely complex sentiments. This is intentional: In search of a no-frills rock album, Folick stripped back the eccentricities of 2018’s Premonitions and 2023’s more low-key Roach. Erotica Veronica draws from a more limited set of influences, most notably the earthy folk-rock of Big Thief and the shimmery wistfulness of the Cranberries, and the album doesn’t deviate much from Cranberry Thief. Without Folick’s usual vocal acrobatics, a pleasantly uptempo song like “Alaska” doesn’t separate itself enough from contemporaries Samia or, inevitably, Maggie Rogers. It’s not until penultimate track “Love Wants Me Dead” that the album fully lets loose, with a searing guitar solo from Mal Hauser that finally reflects the lyrical angst.
