grabyourface "Sadgirl Mixtape"

If ever there was an album that could make you cry into your takeaway coffee while listening in the back of a cab on a rainy night, it's "Sadgirl Mixtape" by French sonic auteur grabyourface. Clocking in at just over 56 minutes, this full-length is an immersive descent into heartbreak, despair, and occasional glimpses of cathartic release. As the press release puts it, this is "the album of a lifetime… Music to cry to in your car at night, while driving to nowhere under the streetlights' alternating beams." And believe me, it delivers every inch of that promise.

grabyourface sets things straight right from the opener, "Everything Remains The Same". The song is shaped by existential melancholy tinged with quiet fury. The track starts with the deceptively calm lines:

grabyourface – "Sadgirl Mixtape"

There's an immediacy here, a sense of waking to life already exhausted. Yet, it's the chorus that hits hardest:

There's a raw, almost cinematic quality to the despair; you can feel the smoke of a burning world creeping through the speakers.

Following that, "The Black Of My Hoodie" dives deeper into grief and absence. It's as if the album leans over your shoulder, whispering all the things you can't admit to anyone else. The opening lines immediately establish the intimate, diary-like quality of grabyourface's lyricism:

There's a bitter realism here, underscored by lines like:

You can almost feel the chill seeping through your headphones as you listen to this piece.

By the time we hit "Bubbles Of Me", the album takes a slightly more experimental turn. The track is as eerie as it is intimate, with lyrics like

It's a chaotic yet seductive unraveling of self, a playful yet dark examination of desire and destruction. There's an almost gothic, dreamy electronica vibe here that balances the raw emo heart of the preceding tracks.

grabyourface doesn't hold back on the vulnerability. "My Last Act Of Love" confronts the collapse of intimate connection with painful honesty:

The repetition of these lines is hypnotic, echoing the obsessive, looping nature of heartbreak itself. By this point, it's not just listening—it's inhabiting someone else's grief.

"I Dream Of A Future Without You" and "Tear Myself Away" follow, each a stark, confessional exploration of trauma and liberation. In the former, grabyourface pleads,

while the latter becomes a mantra for reclaiming agency:

It's hard not to feel yourself being pulled along, breathless, through the emotional gauntlet the artist has constructed.

Midway through, the album turns morbidly playful with "Feeling Morbid". The track mixes grim humour with stark imagery:

There's a certain bravado in the darkness, a defiance amidst despair. Then comes "All I Have Is Love, All I Do Is Destroy", a six-minute tour de force of self-sabotage and yearning:

You feel both the intensity of the love and the weight of its inevitable collapse—a hallmark of grabyourface's writing.

The latter half of the album maintains this mix of cinematic angst and fragile beauty. "You Will Never Be Happy" is practically a black hole of misery, with lines like

grabyourface

And yet, even here, the music has a certain hypnotic allure; it's a slow, electronic descent you can't stop listening to.

"Rain On The Car Roof" might be the most relatable track for anyone who's spent a sleepless night wandering a city alone:

It captures the quiet, haunting melancholy of urban isolation with pinpoint accuracy.

Finally, the bonus track "Je Lui Dirai Les Mots Bleus", a cover of Christophe's classic, is a tender reprieve. Sung in French, it softens the edges of the album with romance and nostalgia:

It's almost as if grabyourface is exhaling after seven tracks of raw emotion, reminding us that even in sadness, there can be grace.

Musically, "Sadgirl Mixtape" is a hybrid of sad electronica and dreampop, layered with intricate synths, lo-fi textures, and occasional bursts of distortion. It recalls the angst of Linkin Park, the melancholy of Lana Del Rey, and the contemporary emo-rap sensibilities of Lil Peep, yet it maintains a uniquely European, cinematic sensibility. The production is intimate and occasionally raw, with grabyourface handling nearly every aspect of music, lyrics, and mixing themselves. The occasional assistance from Ben Concrete and Matt Fanale adds just enough polish without diluting the emotional core.

By the end of "Sadgirl Mixtape", you're left drained, yet curiously soothed. It's not an easy listen, but it's a necessary one for anyone who's ever felt the weight of love, loss, and existential despair. This record is a companion for your darkest nights, a mirror to your own fragility, and a reminder that, as grabyourface puts it:

In short, if you've got a penchant for cathartic melancholia, haunting melodies, and lyrics that cut straight to the bone, "Sadgirl Mixtape" is an absolute must-listen. It's the sort of record you experience, painfully, beautifully, and thoroughly.

grabyourface – "All I Have Is Love, All I Do Is Destroy"