Despite hailing from Brooklyn, Rae Isla sounds completely stratified in the atmosphere above our country on “American Paradise.” Hovering between painful longing and bitter condemnation, this airy pop star stretches the gossamer of her sounds to a tense and passionate apex. Mournful guitars wane in and out of view while distinctly boom-bap drums ground the track to reality described as full of opposing ideas that make this world simultaneously inhospitable yet a necessary home to inhabit. Rae Isla sidesteps the clichés with earnest declarations of longing for a home she recognizes as flawed, and these honest moments are carried to a painful, celestial finish that finds peace when soaring above the land. -Tucker Pennington
