Frosted Coke Bottle Green Vinyl Exclusively Available at Barnes & Noble. From the very beginning, fans have fallen in love with
Jensen McRae
for the sharp, evocative, and clear-eyed songwriting.
McRae
songwriting is vulnerable, yes, but it's also powerful for not holding back. Now,
I Don't Know How But They Found Me!
delivers
's evolution from a promising young artist to a bona fide songwriter and star. "The most profound choices of my life," says
, "have often felt like things I did before I was ready to do, and I had to grow into them."
is about what follows when you have withstood what you thought might crush you. It's about meeting your limits and learning what you're capable of. "I connected with the idea that I could've easily collapsed beneath the weight of what happened to me, but I didn't. I didn't even know it," she says, "but I was bulletproof the whole time."
Born and raised in L.A.,
has studied and made music for most of her life. She attended Grammy Camp in high school and graduated from USC's Thornton School of Music with a degree in Popular Music.
's debut album,
Are You Happy Now?
, was written mostly when she was just 21 and was the first step in developing her now-devoted fan base.
navigates identity from it's deepest foundations -- life as a young, biracial Black and Jewish woman -- to its most personal musings: do I trust you, do I trust myself.
's trust in herself has borne out on multiple occasions, most recently and maybe most famously in the form of "Massachusetts."
posted a solo verse and chorus, little more than a piece of a demo, and it caught fire online. Covers, duets, and an avalanche of new fans followed, and
capped the moment with a finished version and a summer-long tour supporting
Noah Kahan
.
takes
's now-considerable powers and hardwires them for mass appeal. Stealth single "Savannah" is one for the yearners. The pulsing, country-adjacent song immediately brings the best of
Phoebe Bridgers
to mind, with
singing in an acrobatic whisper over a feather-light acoustic guitar. By the time "Savannah" hits its crescendo, it's crystal clear
is an artist with her own singular power, as piano layers with guitar and
delivers a series of scathing indictments with grit and conviction: "You swore you'd raise our kids to end up just like you/Well you're a false prophet/And that's a goddamn promise." Meanwhile, "Let Me Be Wrong" is a bona fide anthem, a "buoyant ode to rejecting perfectionism." Built once again on a simple vocal and acoustic guitar, "Let Me Be Wrong" builds step over step in its defiance; guitars layer, drums pick up the pace, and
makes space for everyone's mistakes. When
growls "f*ck those girls got everything," it's a punch of both power and vulnerability, begging to be shouted in unison with the biggest possible crowd.
The unusual title of her second album? Taken from a line in
's favorite film, Back to the Future. A key protagonist survives a hail of bullets, and the image resonated with
. "I really connected with the idea that I could've easily collapsed beneath the weight of what happened to me, but I didn't. I didn't even know it,"
says, "but I was bulletproof the whole time."