First Impressions: Face to Face by Rebecca Sykes

Day turns to night, night to day. This time of year, Earth rotates and revolves, tilts and whirls, leaves those in the northern hemisphere with five o’clock shadows and those in the southern half with sunshine ’til almost eight. Time speeds and slows, too, dependent not just on Earth’s inner core but perception. A millisecond here, a nanosecond there, a long song that sounds short and a short song that plays like an album side—it’s weird, right?

The debut EP from San Diego-based singer-songwriter Rebecca Sykes, Face to Face, falls into the conundrum that is that last category, with four songs that somehow circumvent time. They remind me of Juliana Hatfield circa Beautiful Creature and In Exile Deo, with cushiony vocals draped across cutting lyrics. “When I wrote these songs, I quite literally had to look at myself face to face—dive into my emotions, look myself in the eye, and just be real with myself,” she explains in the press release. “All of these songs share the theme of processing very strong emotions.”

The EP opens with “I Am (Not),” released as a single last week. She says she wrote it during a difficult stretch in her life, when she felt overwhelmed by a lousy day job and nights drumming for a metal band. “I was just feeling lost in life and trying to figure things out,” she says. “I like the contrast between the gritty, heavier guitar strumming that kind of represents this feeling of wanting to scream at everything—and then the vocals are so soft; it’s like this feeling of just wanting to give up.”

“When I Leave” navigates the tricky terrain of infatuation—not hers, but another’s; they fell head over heels for her, while she felt nothing in return. “Your Mind” flips the script, with her craving a relationship with someone wary of commitment. “[T]his person was clear that they were not ready to be in a relationship,” she explains. “I was very unsure of what I was looking for and what I wanted in a person.” Both songs stretch and compress time, lasting forever yet ending too soon.

I spotlighted the closing track, “Dysmorphia,” a ways back. As the title indicates, it focuses on an issue too many young people face, forever seeing flaws in themselves where none exist. As with the previous tracks, it somehow plays out in both slow and fast motion, with hushed vocals arcing high one moment and flowing low the next. Here’s a live version she shared on YouTube two weeks ago:

In short, Face to Face echoes the alternative pop and rock of the 1990s and 2000s, when dream-laden melodies were often paired with incisive lyrics. It’s a remarkable debut.