“Escaper” Is The Electrifying Debut Sarah Kinsley Deserves

Her new album is a singular force that proves there are so few artists making music as audacious and bold as Sarah Kinsley.

“You say, ‘Sarah, bring me back/So I try and bring you closer/ We’re at the edge of the world between you and I,”  Sarah Kinsley sings on her gloriously extravagant debut album “Escaper” that puts you in the passenger seat of Kinsley’s wild inclinations as an artist and a lover. 

Most of the tracks on “Escaper” have a feeling of urgency, as if Kinsley is on the edge of discovering just how brutal and punishing love can be. In this particular track, the hypnotic “Glint”, Kinsley looks back in cinemascope at a relationship that has come to a crashing end. “There is no love lost when you stop breathing,” she sings scornfully in the final lines, “I swear I remember everything.”

I first discovered Kinsley last year with the release of her EP “Ascension”, five tracks that were high on originality and eccentricity. “Oh No Darling!”, the EP’s standout, showcased Kinsley’s nervy storytelling about a girl who sometimes takes things too far: “Oh no darling, there she goes/ Running with her head, for the sake of living on her edge.” While “Lovegod”, the EP’s lead single, laid the groundwork for just how experimental and bold “Escaper” would be. 

And yet, I still was not prepared for just what a wildly exciting album this is. On nearly every track, Kinsley drops bombs for her listeners that range from the wicked, highly dramatic production to her highly descriptive songwriting that sounds unlike anyone else out there. This album’s voice is distinctly Kinsley’s.  

Kinsely is at her best as a maximalist. She is an artist who is profoundly excessive, and there is no better showcase of her flair for drama than in her music. Kinsley goes for broke on nearly every track with a giant soprano voice that she deploys with striking force to lament on the painful end of relationships or the possibilities of seeing her lover in another realm. Her music crashes and collapses with force; her voice is often urgent. 

On an excellent four-song opening stretch, Kinsley establishes the turbulent, fierce pace that sharpens its stride with every preceding track. The album’s lead single “The Last Time We Never See Each Other Again” is a fantastic example of Kinsley’s penchant for spectacle with strings and a fast-paced orchestration that is heightened by Kinsley’s farewell, “I hope you get everything you wanted,” she sings to an ex. But for herself? “I hope I hear your name and feel absolutely nothing.”

A song later, Kinsley is imagining what could have been with a lover. “In some other realm, you are waitin’ for me,” she sings. “I’m not ashamed of it now, you aren’t afraid to love me.” Yet the song’s most striking feature is its orchestration that begins with the force of a piano crashing and careening into madness. 

Part of the thrill of Kinsley’s music is that this orchestration is as gigantic as the feelings she writes about. It’s an album that can be trippy and sneaky on tracks like “There Was A Room” where the percussion slowly unravels. On the 80s-tinged track “Sublime”, she languishes over a boy who makes her cry. She admits, in somewhat of a jolt, “Oh how life would be sublime/ If I could just forget you, baby.”

Throughout “Escaper”, Kinsely seems to be bargaining with how much skin she can lose in a breakup, as evident in the lyrics for “Matter”: “As a matter of fact/ I’m doing better without your hands out/ Of the knife in my back.” 

Obsession is a recurring theme here, whether she’s reckoning with love’s end or with a partner who was never quite within reach. “There was a room/ Of the things I’d trade to get a day with you,” she sings with no shame midway through the album. “I’d kill and I’d lie just to get a little glimpse into your mind.” 

While her most arresting tracks come with the often surprising musical arrangement choices, Kinsley still makes the most effective use of her voice on her ballads. Her voice is, after all, the album’s most powerful instrument, particularly when she’s deep in mourning. ““How can beautiful things still be around/ After you’ve left me now?” She sings on “Beautiful Things” with a near wail, substituting vibrant production for a stripped piano. 

Near the end of the album, Kinsley plays on a joke that many twentysomethings say to their best friends: “If we’re both single by the time we're 40, let’s get married.” For many singers, this track, titled “Starling”, could be cheesy or like generically produced for Top 40 fodder. 

Yet in Kinsley’s capable hands, “Starling” becomes a poignant love song for her best friend. “If love was only meant for lovers in bed/ You’d better wait till we’re done,” she tells her friend. “And she says we’re the lucky ones/ To meet another is a miracle/ Let alone you and I.” 

In an album full of excess and big feelings, “Starling” is a quieter moment; perhaps all the more easy to overlook. But it captures something truly evocative: Kinsley’s keen eye on what love means and how it doesn’t have to be just between romantic partners. Friendship is often what pulls us out of the depths of trauma. Friendship, Kinsley seems to intone, is what helps us escape our worst selves.