What stands out most about Brighton, UK’s Opal Mag is her lyrical instinct. There’s nothing grandiose on “I Don’t Like You, but I Love You”, just small emotional truths handled with precision. Her voice is weary yet warm and riffs through layers of reverb-drenched guitars and softly pulsing rhythms, carrying the weight of someone caught between staying and fleeing, wanting and doubting.
Opal’s latest offering is a study in contrasts: the sweetness of love clashing with the bitterness of disappointment, rendered in soft-focus sonics that shimmer with vulnerability. Drawing inspiration from the dream-pop haze of Mazzy Star and the jangling melancholy of The Sundays, she crafts a sound that feels at once classic and quietly subversive. There’s a late-night quality to the track, like the kind of song that creeps in around the edges, gradually filling the room with a sense of shared unease.
It’s a quietly devastating song that sidesteps melodrama in favour of something far more intimate and real. Armed with this Opal Mag establishes a mood, a voice, and a perspective that’s wholly her own. A deeply felt and delicately constructed exploration of emotional ambivalence. Hazy, slow-blooming music that positions her as an interesting voice in the lineage of introspective indie auteurs.
