4AD

Small Mercies follows the 23 year-old Pixx's debut album, The Age Of Anxiety (2017) – an unsettling synth-pop record fuelled by Pixx’s own debilitating experience of angst – and 2015’s forlorn and folk-edged Fall In EP. Co-produced by Simon Byrt (who worked on both her EP and debut album) and Dan Carey, it sees Pixx assuming different personas to examine the damage done by religion, gender-based power hierarchies and stereotypes, the tipping point of Earth’s destruction and love.

Although love lives at the heart of the BRIT School graduate’s second album, it has little to do with romance. Small Mercies is absolutely not a heartbreak record, nor is it a celebration of new love, or sisterly call-to-arms or vengeful catharsis. Instead, it is a series of poetic examinations of love across the experiential spectrum, from the micro (self-love) to the macro (devotional faith-inspired love, love for this planet), set to a soundtrack that mixes electronic pop and grungy guitar rock with aplomb.

“I felt more of a drive to write about certain subjects with this album,” Pixx says. “Man negotiating with God, God negotiating with man and man negotiating with the planet. I find it hard to have an understanding of relationships in general – I think everyone does – and the addictive tendency that we have to look for something that’s eternal is something that intrigues me. So, if you love God maybe what draws you to that is the idea of something that’s never going to end and that really intense love often takes place in human relationships, too.”