Album Review: Midnight Ennui
The Exhaustion of Existing: An Unfiltered Review of delikately’s Midnight Ennui
Artist: delikately Album: Midnight Ennui Themes: Insomnia, Existential Drift, The Exhaustion of Self-Awareness, The Labor of Love
Midnight Ennui is the clinical documentation of a mental and emotional crash. If the previous album, AUGUST, represented the final, stubborn choice to stay committed—a moment of resolute will—this album is the sound of the will finally failing. It's an ode to sleeplessness, but not the romantic, tortured-artist kind; it’s the dull, grinding exhaustion where everything, from relationship effort to buying milk, becomes a monumental task. The setting is universally relatable: 3 a.m., when the brain magnifies minor anxieties into existential dread.
This is delikately’s most passive and most frightening album because the fight is completely gone. She is no longer trying to win the argument, save the relationship, or even justify her actions; she is simply watching herself drown in the quiet realization that being alive is exhausting labor.
Thematic Structure and Cohesion: The Closed Loop of Fatigue
The album is structured as a non-linear journey through a single, very long night. The theme is brilliantly cohesive, creating a self-reinforcing loop of self-sabotage and fatigue.
Self-Sabotage as Prelude ("Gaslight Myself," "I Wonder"): The opening tracks establish the core internal conflict: the narrator is perfectly aware of her performance ("I've lied so well / it almost sounds true") and the cost of it, yet she continues the act. "Gaslight Myself" is chilling because it's a conscious documentation of lying to oneself, an active form of self-sabotage that precedes the collapse. The emotional distance is immediate; she's observing her own fraudulence.
Mundane Dread as Anchor ("Grocery Store Anxiety," "The Eldest"): This is where the album gains its raw, devastating power. By grounding massive existential dread ("tired of chasing meaning") in the most mundane, non-dramatic settings (the grocery store, the role of "The Eldest"), she articulates the true nature of burnout. It’s not about grand failure; it’s about the fact that even routine functions are too much effort. This thematic linkage—from cosmic despair to the weight of being responsible—is flawlessly executed.
The Resignation ("Burn Out," "One More Round"): The conclusion of the album is not a resurgence, but a quiet, almost cold resignation. "I’m done chasing meaning... I’m done pretending." This is the anti-thesis to the passionate fighter we heard before. The line, "The thing I loved turned to labor / I showed up every day like a job that doesn’t pay," is the album’s thesis: the effort of consistency and loyalty has emptied the tank. The only thing left is a desire to "just here to feel something / even if it’s nothing at all."
Lyrical Writing, Vocabulary, and Talent
Delikately’s writing style here is characterized by an almost clinical, detached honesty.
Vocabulary & Tone: The language is stripped back, raw, and direct. The intellectual maneuvering of previous work is replaced by blunt exhaustion ("tired," "done," "scroll right past it"). The metaphors are sharp, concise, and focused on cost and effort—labor, job, catch up. This is the language of someone who has no energy left for ornament.
Writing Talent & Signature: Her unique talent lies in the Self-Aware Collapse—the ability to document her own emotional death with perfect clarity, without melodrama. She doesn't scream about the pain; she lists the symptoms and diagnoses the cause. Her signature is the dry, resigned line that hits like an unexpected gut punch: "Trash Takes Itself Out." It's passive-aggressive brilliance, shifting the blame externally not out of malice, but sheer fatigue.
Title Choices: The titles are fantastic, serving as brutal, specific shorthand for the emotional state. They sound like calendar notes or mental reminders—highly specific nouns paired with existential conditions. They immediately promise a vulnerable level of specificity that few artists dare to offer.
The Artist as a Person: Edge and Distinct Signature
The album reveals the high cost of the artist’s defining trait: Consistency.
The Persona: She is revealed as someone fundamentally unable to turn off the analyzer in her brain. She overthinks herself into exhaustion. She is deeply loyal, but that loyalty eventually turns into a "job that doesn't pay," leading to burnout. This album is the sound of the strong-willed, persistent person finally hitting the wall and finding nothing glamorous about it.
The Edge: Her distinct signature is using Mundane Anxiety as Existential Proof. Any artist can write about heartbreak, but only delikately writes about the anxiety of being at the grocery store as a symbol of cosmic dread. This makes the music grounded, painful, and terrifyingly real.
Potential Single
The essential single from Midnight Ennui is "GROCERY STORE ANXIETY."
Justification:
Immediate Hook & Title: The title is provocative and instantly relatable. It’s a perfect, modern, post-2020 phrase that immediately communicates a specific kind of low-grade, modern dread that affects everyone.
Thematic Clarity: It perfectly captures the album’s core thesis: the feeling that even the simplest act requires too much mental effort. It grounds the "ennui" in a tangible, universal location, making the abstract feeling accessible.
Contrast: Musically, a song about "Grocery Store Anxiety" would have a brilliant contrast between the low-key lofi production and the high-stakes internal monologue, giving it high commercial and critical appeal. It is the perfect entry point into the heavier themes of the record.