Nashville based artist Danielle Durack started her music career in 2017 and has since released her third album, titled Escape Artist. Durack continues to hone her artistry, forging her way into the indie pop/rock genre, with sounds resembling some of her musical favorites, Boygenius and Sara Bareilles. 

The album, released on February 16, is one of her most emotional combinations of songs. Her complexity of ideas and themes project through her storytelling. The production on the instrumentals creating her true sound. This album was a place where she found emotional safety and let her writing flow, now commemorated as a form of personified art. 

“Shirt Song” was the first single released last year and titled after a significant piece of clothing owned by a past partner. The semi-beat breakup ballad is accompanied by an electric guitar and drums. It serves as the follow-up single to her 2021 album No Place. Having the shirt from her old flame, she sings, “It all just feels a little too absurd / We fell in love a couple months / And now you’re nothing but another shirt.” The shirt further becomes just a random piece of clothing. It lost the value she once attached to it and the romantic interest. 

More recently released, “Good Dog” has the opposite tone to her emotional state projected in “Shirt Song.” Originally intended to be about her dog’s separation anxiety, it instead became about Durack’s own insecurities and relationship worries. Durack is on piano and lead vocals, while there are elements of violin keeping up with the sadness of her lyrics “Don’t want you to hate me when I get to be too much / I don’t want to be angry when you did nothing wrong.”

Danielle Durack is true to the indie sound as her voice echoes through every song, but most especially on “News.” In this particular track there is again the use of violin, drums and guitar as the song dives into the narration of where the two parties are after the breakup. The lyrics “What’s new with you / You been moving on” and “All I know is my heart’s been broke / But I’m not standing where I was” is the difference between the two people in the aftermath of the separation, being the ‘news’ to one another.

Nearing the end of the tracklist with “Dean” is about Durack’s late step-father that was a part of her childhood before him and her mother divorced. She wasn’t told about his passing and missed the funeral. Therefore this song is about her missed chance to say goodbye. She sings “You didn’t say you were leaving / But looking back I guess you did / And God I wish that I had heard you then / Guess that I wasn’t listening” as she comes to the terms of her father-figure. 

“Moon Song” is the last track that wraps up Escape Artist. The simplicity of an acoustic guitar opens the song. Durack sings about wanting to live on another planet because living on Earth keeps “testing [her] patience and giving [her] scars” as noted in her lyrics. The last song of the album owes more meaning to the title Escape Artist. In a song about escaping to another place through the turmoil of her lyrics, it resembles the meaning of the term itself.

Danielle Durack is the future of indie pop/rock. Her capability is clear, letting this album serve as a place to allow for listeners to connect with Durack. Through this relation to her thoughts on their own or her personal experiences, her popularity will sky-rocket.