Mia Borders: Quarter Life Crisis (Hypersoul)

Mia Borders, Quarter Life Crisis, album cover

Mia Borders is full of attitude on her new disc, Quarter-Life Crisis, and it’s the kind of attitude that make for a hard, edgy record. The sound is crisp and punchy on the rockers, and even the more soul and R&B type numbers have that vibe. Throughout the record, Borders’ voice sounds like it is emotionally going to crack or blow up or lose it, which fits the album’s title. [iframe class=”spotify-right” src=”https://embed.spotify.com/?uri=spotify:album:5v748PrrhrxS3s8cyugnF3″ width=”300″ height=”380″ frameborder=”0″ allowtransparency=”true”]Buy on AmazonBuy on iTunesShe’s paranoid as her stream of consciousness rapping about her boyfriend gets more wound-up on “Keep Crying” or regretful on “Twenty-Five” as she sings about cutting off her past. It’s a tribute to the precision of her voice that she can keep up that feeling for an entire record. Her working band backs her on this, and they keep up the musical end of things playing with enough emotion to support Borders without competing. They are loose enough to give her the space for her voice to move, yet tight enough to support the range of emotion she shows on this disc. By the end of the record when she’s sounds like she can barely keep it together or still as she sings she “danced with giants and flew with ravens,” the band plays a tough, martial beat that is coming after anyone Borders has a beef with. That song, “Where I Come From,” is a musical and emotional climax to a record of great music and great intensity.