As autumn wanes into winter, the new year dangles overhead like a nursery mobile. Still, while January’s glittering allure looms large—replete with lofty resolutions scribbled in blank notebooks—to look outside at the leaves dying in a red-orange blaze is to be reminded of everything that must perish to clear a path forward.
Amid this season suspended between endings and beginnings, Angelica Cox is feeling, understandably, Homesick (2024).
On her debut album released on Nov. 15, the singer-songwriter explores quintessential twenty-something growing pains with an intimate yet expansive sound you’ll be eager to lose yourself in. The sonic equivalent of a last glance over your shoulder before stepping into the unknown, this album uses dreamy harmonies and reverberating guitar riffs to recreate the bittersweetness of time-fuzzed memories. Lyrically, this bittersweetness lingers. In classic David Foster Wallace fashion, Cox’s past has claw marks on it, but these scarlet stripes are not sources of shame for her: like pageant queen sashes, they honor a life well-loved.
The opening title track “Homesick” sees Cox grappling with not just missing her hometown, but missing the version of her hometown to which she can never return: “When I said I wanna go home, I don’t know what I was talking about cause California’s looking so different to me now” she sings in the opening line. The song closes with a similar sentiment reflective of her personal growth: “I can be where I used to be, but I won’t be who I used to be.” Throughout the song, sunbaked strings collide with lively drums and syrupy vocals to replicate the haze of gnawing nostalgia.
“I feel like homesickness is a bittersweet feeling,” Cox said in an interview with the Voice. “It’s like, you have something that you miss, but that doesn’t mean it was always good. It doesn’t mean that you could ever get back there, but it’s kind of like this weird sick-sweet feeling.”
While this first song evokes memories of Cox’s childhood in California, “Jane” was born across the pond on a frustration-fueled tube ride after visiting the Tower of London.
“Yeah, that’s my angry at men song,” Cox said.
During her tour of the castle, Cox overheard a few unsavory comments about the memorial for individuals like Lady Jane Grey and Anne Boleyn who were executed at the site that left her furiously typing in her notes app in the aftermath.
“I was listening to our tour guide talk about it, and then I overheard this guy being like ‘Ugh, why would they get a monument? They were killed, obviously they were killed for a reason,’ just kind of being like ‘You know, they must have been bad people because they were executed,’” Cox said. “It literally made me so mad on the way home.”
On “Jane,” Cox mocks the notion that “a girl should be put in her place,” channeling her rage into a tongue-in-cheek, indie-pop anthem with glossy vocals and high-spirited percussion to match. Anchored by an infectious, Mazzy Star-esque tambourine, “Jane” hides its exasperation behind a shimmering smile—a feeling so many women know all too well.
“I think it ended up kind of just being my song about men belittling women in general and discounting women and I think especially now today it always kind of feels like that,” Cox said. “It always kind of feels like there’s always going to be a man who’s going to laugh at my story and laugh at my life and kind of look at his perspective of what it is, and not really consider like, you know, I was a little girl with dreams.”
Back-to-back tracks “Float Away” and “Stars” delve deeper into the demolition of those wide-eyed dreams of Cox’s younger years. On “Float Away,” apathy and dissatisfaction spur the songstress’s desire to escape her current life: “I need a new start. I wanna feel alive.” Her craving for weightlessness is mirrored in the delectably spacey production that features feather-light vocals, twinkling tones, and transcendent choral harmonies. Ironically, the next song “Stars” brings the listener back down to earth with melancholic piano chords and a somber cello. In this ballad, Cox grieves the loss of her faith, breaking our hearts with lines like “I wish I saw the stars like you do, I only see the dust that they turn into.”
After mourning her rose-colored glasses, the funeral continues on the subsequent triptych of tunes: “Six Feet,” “Art of Dying,” and “Party Zombie.” The soul-bearing “Six Feet” describes the death of a relationship following the devastating realization that a lover is not the person they once claimed to be: “Now I’m 22 and I’m scared of you, it’s just what my instincts tell me to do.” A simple yet stirring guitar riff underpins the track, with each lick feeling like a tug at the heartstrings.
Next, Angelica Cox put her own special spin on a George Harrison classic. While the rest of Homesick tilts towards a more mellow indie-alternative style, “Art of Dying” is unapologetically rock ‘n’ roll. Here, decay has never felt so indulgent. The track roars to life with an angsty, electrified crescendo—a humorously invigorating beginning despite what its name might suggest.
Though Cox normally dabbles in the style of her favorite “sad indie girl” sweethearts like Phoebe Bridgers and Lana Del Rey, on this cover, she leans into her love of Pink Floyd and My Chemical Romance. In fact, she was first inspired to cover “Art of Dying” after hearing one of Harrison’s stripped-down early demos and noticing a likeness to the musical sensibilities of MCR’s Gerard Way.
“Something about the melody without hearing all of the kind of big-wall-of-sound, 70s style production with the horns and stuff, I was like ‘Oh, this could be on My Chemical Romance’s second album Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge,’ just like the way it’s written,” Cox said. “That’s one of my favorite albums and my favorite artist ever, so I was like let me see what this sounds like in that style. So I made the demo which was kind of like this big almost emo shoegaze version and I really liked it. And then it just kind of made sense on the album, because a lot of the album—you know, when it’s not about childhood and stuff—is about me thinking about life and death and dying and existence in general.”
The last installment of this macabre trilogy is “Party Zombie,” a wallflower’s lament that sees Cox struggling to find her footing in the world of the living while feeling emotionally numb. Co-written with Josh Frankowski from PISSKISS, this song’s softer start bursts open like a piñata in its second half. Fittingly, when Cox sings “No one wants a dead girl at the party,” explosive drums inject the track with new life—almost like a zombie being raised from the dead.
This sense of revival persists on the sunny album closer “California Nights.” After wrestling with themes of life and death throughout the record, this jubilant celebration of friendship concludes with a renewed sense of hope: “Man, I feel alive.”
Though Homesick is largely a study of decay, its creation was one of rejuvenation, specifically with regards to the relationship between Cox and her father Chris Cox, a long-time musician in his own right.
“It was a really great way for us to come together, especially since the songs are kind of about childhood and stuff,” Cox said. “It felt very full-circle and we cried a lot working on these songs. I remember watching him listen to the ‘Homesick’ mix in the airport, and he just had tears streaming down his face. It was very emotional and it brought us together.”
Stylistically, Cox reflects this newfound closeness with her father by blending the hallmarks of their favorite respective genres.
“My dad’s background is in dance music and pop, so it’s kind of like taking elements of that with the kind of intimate songwriting I like,” Cox said.
Ultimately, as evidenced by this integral collaboration, Homesick is a tender-hearted celebration of both lost and found. The lovechild of indie and alternative artists like Turnover, Ethel Cain, girl in red, and The Cranberries, Angelica Cox is sure to impress listeners with her contemplative, atmospheric debut.
