“I forget about you when I’m not even trying,” sings Maisie Peters on her third studio album, Florescence. “They play our song, and I keep driving.” In the highly anticipated follow-up to her sophomore effort, The Good Witch, Peters’ latest work finds her returning more to her acoustic roots while broadening her musical horizons, dabbling in country and folk influences. As the singer continues to chronicle the ascent of her womanhood as she enters her mid-20s, Peters not only sounds at peace with herself and old wounds, but like she’s solidifying her place in the pop music canon and, by extension, in the world at large.
“Audrey Hepburn”, the lead single released last fall, set the stage for a folksy vibe reminiscent of Peters’ very first single, “Place We Were Made”. This time around, however, the singer has grown up and realized that there are still nuggets of wisdom to be found in the places we once yearned so badly to escape. “I don’t need accolades or everyone to want me,” she sings, “‘Cause you want me and that’s as good as it gets.” Whether she’s referring to a lover or to her homegrown talent, or both, makes for some of the best lyrics Peters has written to date.
Similarly, the peace Peters seems to have found by coming home again continues into “Say My Name in Your Sleep”, which exudes multitudes of growth and maturity from the girl who once sang, “Nothing more frightening than a woman scorned.” It’s essentially a calmer and less vengeful way of saying she still hopes she haunts the dreams of the romances that didn’t work out.
Peters crafted Florescence around the theme of coming into one’s own, of “blossoming”, while also incorporating her own notion that she has a very thick skin, but “in other ways, sometimes something can permeate that you really didn’t expect”. Take “You You You”, whose chorus incorporates one of the best hooks in Peters’ catalogue thus far, exploring the fact that being really hurt by someone or something leads our following actions to be subconsciously dictated by that hurt: “So I can’t go back, and I can’t go home / And I can’t move forward / I’m the scene of the crime, and the bore of the bar / And a memory hoarder.”
Where Peters previously explored themes of heartbreak on The Good Witch, they were centered on the ideas of winning a breakup and on reminding young women not to take themselves for granted in relationships with men. Now, the singer is dictating how to quietly move through the hurt, since empowerment alone often isn’t enough to erase the ugly feelings that linger longer than we would like.
Maisie Peters recorded most of Florescence in Nashville, so it makes sense that some country influences shine through the acoustic bedroom pop. “My Regards”, the third single released alongside a heavily promoted music video featuring comedian Benito Skinner, is such a quintessential Maisie Peters song that it’s easy to forget that it’s also a country song. Utilizing the same girl power that she leaned into on The Good Witch, just a bit somber this time, the singer takes pity on the eyes of the people who wish they had the famous lover who belongs to her in the song: “Send the boys and the girls of the city / Best of luck, my regards from his bedroom.”
Another track that samples country stylings is “Vampire Time”, another classic Peters composition that contradicts itself between hate, love, and regret: “Is your stereo still stuck on 89? / Does your telephone still talk ’bout me sometimes? / ‘Cause I had to know what you’re doing tonight / And what you’re doing tomorrow / And the rest of your life.”
If there were one track on Florescence that truly captures what it means to blossom, to grow up with the world watching and have that experience reflected through art, it would be “Girl’s Just Flying”. It comes across unassuming at first, perhaps an upper-beat rehash of “Love Him I Don’t” or the anthemic “There It Goes”. However, “Girl’s Just Flying” reflects the mark of a woman who literally and figuratively isn’t weighed down by past mistakes or heartbreak, at least not during the three minutes it occupies. “I’m not bitter, I’m not dying,” she proclaims. “Can’t bait the girl if the girl’s not biting / Can’t get to the girl, now the girl’s just flying.”
Our experiences are what make up who we are, for better and worse, full of light and darkness. What Maisie Peters expertly accomplishes in Florescence is to weld these narratives into a cohesive body of work that expresses the dual experience of falling low and flying high once again.