Eden Rain has always had a way of making the personal universal. On "Ugly Crier," the latest single from her new EP "Can I Come Too?", she takes that gift and magnifies it into something simultaneously gut-punching and oddly comforting. A confessional, release number produced by Steph Marziano, "Ugly Crier" is a song about searching for beauty in the scraps of being alive.
When another artist might choose to avoid being open, Eden dives straight into it with honesty that cannot be ignored. Here, her voice, warm, communicative, and rich with feeling, is brought right to the fore, and every sigh, crack, or soaring note tells its own story. The production doesn't dominate, instead, it serves as a frame around her vocals, like an intimate spotlight flickering on and off above a singer who can sound both fragile and powerful, much like the emotions being unpacked in the song.
"Ugly Crier" remains a vital emotional thread in "Can I Come Too?," a collection that charts the complex, unfiltered growth of a relationship with an unairbrushed eye. It's not just songs of heartbreak or the hope of new love, it's the in-between moments, it's the mess you left on the bathroom floor, a quiet revelation at 2 a.m., things that we're often too afraid to say aloud. That's what lends this project, and this single in particular, its resonance.
Already hailed by BBC Radio 1 and widely supported in the press, Eden's roll-out has been posing as though it was bearing witness to an artist coming into her own. "Ugly Crier" isn't afraid to be a little, to be a little imperfect, and that's precisely what makes it resonate. It's a song for anyone who's ever cried hard enough that they could laugh about it later, evidence that they're bruised. Bruising musician knows how to make openness feel like power, and this grief sounds like something stunning.
Follow Eden Rain on Instagram