“Love hurts. Love scars. Love wounds and mars any heart not tough nor strong enough to take a lot of pain.” So says the poet Boudleaux Bryant in one of several songs he composed alone (the bulk of his tunes were written with his wife, Felice). What makes those words—first sung by the Everly Brothers in 1960 and eventually by Gram Parsons, Emmylou Harris and (ugh) Nazareth, among others—resonate like a Shakespeare sonnet is that no heart is actually tough or strong enough to survive love’s sting.
The five-song Burn the Hard Drive finds Jade Bird processing the grief that followed the end of what she assumed was a love for life. It must have been tempting to revert to the angst-styled rave-ups of her earlier outings, as they’d certainly allow her to vent, but instead she and Mura Masa (aka Alex Crossan) have shaped a contemplative set that’s more in keeping with Bryant’s approach to love’s aftermath.
On the moody title track, which she wrote during the relationship’s last days, she does the modern equivalent of cutting a lover’s face out of her photographs: wiping all evidence of him from her computer. Deleting said pictures doesn’t delete the memories themselves, of course, though she hopes against hope that will be the result: “Frame by frame/I remember you less every day/The memories they all melt away/Like atoms trying to find their place.
“C.O.M.P.L.E.X” delves into the narcissistic tendencies some people reveal when dealing with their partners, which invariably develop like Polaroid photos—over time. It’s a clever riposte that, as I joked on Instagram, describes my cat to a T (and a few humans I’ve known, too). That the lyrics are paired to a slow-motion rockabilly beat allows Bird’s evocative vocals to ring all the more. On the bass-and synth-driven “You’ve Fallen in Love Again,” she shares her fear of falling in love again—for to open one’s heart is to risk further pain.
“C’est La Vie” is the closest the EP comes to the rave-ups of her earlier releases. It’s a fiery riposte of resignation, if that makes sense, recognizing that sometimes it’s best to let go. The EP closes on a relatively optimistic note with “Breaking the Grey,” which like the title track features Mura Masa; it’s the audio equivalent of a sunbeam cutting through darkened clouds on an overcast day.
In short, Burn the Hard Drive is sure to resonate with all but the hard-hearted—or narcissists—among us. As with her previous outings, the songs themselves are relatively short, with the longest clocking in at 3:13. But don’t confuse brevity for lack of heft; these are thoughtful treatises all. Bird’s vocals remain a thing of wonder, of course, capturing the nuances of the grief, anger and acceptance that she spells out in her lyrics.
The Old Grey Cat 