Review: Madi Diaz Details a History of Heartache

Madi Diaz | Same History, New Feelings | Anti-
3.5 Stars out of Five

Heartbreak has an especially telling effect on most singer/songwriters. And while it’s often tragic, making music offers an outlet for repressed feelings and those sadder sentiments that linger long after the relationship has been severed.

Madi Diaz sings songs of disappointment and despair on her new EP, Same History, New Feelings EP, an offering consisting of four re-recorded songs from her last LP, History Of A Feeling. She enlists some notable collaborators to help excise the emotions she shares so expressively— Angel Olsen, Waxahatchee, Courtney Marie Andrews, and Natalie Hemby—and the result is a series of songs that vent in a variety of ways. The song titles tell the story—“Resentment,” “History of a Feeling,” “New Person Old Place” and “Forever”—and each lives up to the promise implied. Diaz’s downward gaze keeps a consistent focus, but it’s the lush and lovely melodies that find a focus. The hushed vocals that pave the way for “New Person Old Place” make that song a standout, but the ethereal arrangements and exceptional harmonies provide a constant throughout, gracing the EP with a spectral beauty that overrides the sadness.

Not that Diaz is content to moot her feelings “Does it make you mad, living in the past?” she asks at one point,” obviously from a hypothetical point of view. It’s a rare display of resentment but taken in tandem with the sobering sounds that accompany it, it’s easy to take it in tandem.

Granted, almost everyone has suffered from a similar scenario at one time or another, but it takes an adroit artist like Diaz to encapsulate that situation and create a connection that allows her listeners to relate. In that regard, Same History, New Feelings delivers that and much more.

Photo Credit: Natalie Osborne