Quit the Curse

After years of playing in bands (Frontier Ruckus, Failed Flowers), Detroit’s Anna Burch has gone solo with her debut album, Quiet the Curse. It’s a creatively strong collection of even-keeled pop tunes coated in a thin layer of grit. Burch’s straightforward approach suits the sentiments at the heart of the songs, like the subdued, reverb-drenched “Belle Isle,” a lovelorn tune in which she laments: “We danced to that song twice in a row/and I can’t let go all that easy.” The songs aren’t that punchy, rather they get to their point in understated ways, allowing the words to pull the listener in, as on “What I Want,” in which she sets a thoughtful scene (“at the bar/I was sulking and regretting going out”), and over the course of loping progression arrives at a chorus and a realization: “I won’t play the victim/just because I can’t get what I want.”