Review: Weird Faith by Madi Diaz released via Anti
I don’t even have an interesting title here. This might be the best album of the year.
I have tried and failed to get into Madi Diaz since 2021’s History of a Feeling. Every time I dig into a release by this artist I like the singles, maybe another track or two, nothing has ever connected quite like this.
The first six words of Weird Faith is “what the fuck do you want?” Is an opening statement I could write an entire dissertation on. It poses hostility but follows it up with lines who pave the way for everything else we’re about to hear over the course of the next forty minutes. This record is spiked and icey tonally but just enough to melt at the warmest breath by its audience. This woman cares so much, in the hook to this track she talks about letting someone into her life to the point she’s risking ruining it and wondering if they on the other end are willing to do the same. This feeling as if you bow to everything someone wants, surely, it must work. Eventually though they’ll be more than one foot in the door. When they are, you'll really know the truth.
What the fuck do you want? Cause I’ll give you all that I’ve got.
I’ll let you clean out my closet and I’ll let you try on all my dirty thoughts.
This album is written with so much hope on the brink of despair and it's proven and felt with every note and melody you hear. “Everything Almost” presents the feeling of wishing one day someone will come and take all your pain away. This as a theme feels unexplorable unless you’ve lived it yourself. On the second verse there are talks of wanting to start a family but fearing what doing so will bring to the surface. Will you become so push away the person you brought new life in with? Will your own parents live to meet them? It’s an emotional rollercoaster.
The music on Weird Faith isn’t necessarily grandiose but it’s exactly what it needs to be. The main riff of “Girlfriend” pushes you side to side, much like the state of everything you’re talked through. I’ve also just, in general, never heard a song like this. Madi talks about someone trying to get back together with their ex, her current partner, and the place it puts them all in. I can’t even call it jealousy when it feels so justified. Because of the instrumental simplicity and lyrical depth when songs are a bit richer sonically it hits you right away. A song like “Kiss the Wall” is a head turner. “For Months Now” starts to come to a close with a hard-hitting boom complete with vocal riffing and a lyrical passage so tragic it aches to even hear.
When I love you, I hate you the most.
Speaking of, “For Months Now,” like everything, hits really close to home. When you’re with someone for so long, leaving them isn’t a moment. It’s the slow unraveling of everything you’ve built and lived together and every time they’ve taken you for granted. My ex thought I left her because of some things going wrong over the course of a vacation, in reality it was because she treated me like garbage for over a decade. One day you’re just strong enough to pull the trigger.
“God Person” is about trying to find little signs and comfort in everything in spite of not feeling attached to any religion. She also talks, again, about her parents and trying so hard to be a different person than either of them, simultaneously watching for guidance. I try very hard to not have my father’s stubborn heart and try to learn from the mistakes my mother made because she didn’t know better at the time, so all of this is felt.
I don’t even know what to say about the Kacey Musgraves feature other than she does a great job. Not only do I have no notes on her end, she also pushes Madi to be a better vocalist who's absolutely belting on this one.
Usually I choose a favorite track, but I cannot possibly narrow it to one when everything is so full of pain, love and life. The only track not hitting me completely is “Obsessive Thoughts,” which closes the record. While I do think it's a good closer and the huge rock ending is very fitting, one final shout to the void before it all fades to black, I also think it sort of clashes with the rest of the album. It almost feels like it came from a different mindset and writing sessions entirely.
I’ve said this about a lot of albums in the past but there is so much I admire about brutal honesty especially when it’s this confessional. It’s one thing to write songs about the things we feel but also feel like we can’t tell anybody, it’s another to release it in a record over five hundred thousand people will hear. While the album also acknowledges this as being a huge responsibility it handles it really well. I think part of the reason I find music like this so catching is because this is who I wish I was at my core. I wear my heart on my sleeve, the harder I try to be agreeable the worse it shows. If you’re closer to me it’s even harder to deal with. I think, like I said in the Mean Girls review, this is another thing tying into why I run from confessional reviews. It’s probably why I also run from making music itself. I know I’d let everything out. But hey, when other people do it, sometimes it really inspires me. I should probably actually get to trying it myself.
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