REVIEW: Mothica - Somewhere In Between
- Mia Gailey
- 2 hours ago
- 3 min read
On Somewhere In Between, MOTHICA isn’t reinventing herself for the sake of aesthetics. She’s documenting survival. As the debut release on SharpTone Records, the EP could have leaned into spectacle - heavier guitars, bigger hooks, louder statements. Instead, what makes it land is the tension underneath. This is a record written in the aftermath of relapse, rehab, cancelled tours and the uncomfortable quiet that follows chaos. You can hear that lived reality in every track.
Evergreen Misery opens with motion. There’s something deceptively buoyant about it - shimmering production, a hook that sticks quickly, but lyrically it establishes the emotional thesis of the EP. Misery here isn’t episodic; it’s perennial. Compared to what follows, this track feels observational. It names the pattern. It doesn’t yet try to break it. The guitars are present but controlled, giving the sadness shape without overwhelming it. It’s the entry point into the spiral - honest, but still slightly guarded.
Then WEAPON pushes deeper. Where Evergreen Misery identifies the cycle, WEAPON confronts the role she plays within it. The production is heavier, more insistent, reflecting the all or nothing mindset MCKENZIE ELLIS has spoken about - that fatalistic pull between self-preservation and self-destruction. Compared to the opener’s restless melancholy, this feels sharper and more confrontational. It’s less about being stuck in misery and more about acknowledging how easily pain can become something you wield against yourself. The guitars bite harder here, aligning with her long-held desire to blend pop songwriting with grittier textures.
Save Your Roses shifts the frame again. On the surface, it plays like yearning - an explosive, dynamic anthem that feels built for live rooms. But as ELLIS has explained, the song disguises addiction as romantic longing. The verses capture the intoxicating pull of substances, mirroring her experience navigating sobriety and relapse. In comparison to WEAPON, which internalises the blame, Save Your Roses feels like a plea outward. The line “Don’t save your roses for my grave,” inspired by a fan telling her to give people their flowers while they’re here, reframes the EP’s earlier darkness. After naming misery and weaponising self-destruction, this track asks to be seen before it’s too late. Its explosive production - crafted with ELLIOT POLOKOFF - contrasts deliberately with the lyrical heaviness, making the vulnerability feel louder, not lighter.
BULLET pulls the energy back inward but intensifies it. If Save Your Roses is outward-facing, almost communal, BULLET feels solitary and volatile. The tension coils tighter; the guitars feel more serrated. This is where the anger she described channeling after rehab surfaces most clearly. Compared to Evergreen Misery, which moved with a sense of resigned rhythm, BULLET sounds cornered. It embodies the frustration of realising how far things have spiralled - the moment of reckoning after numbing emotions for too long. It’s arguably the EP’s emotional peak, where vulnerability and aggression fully collide. The title track, Somewhere In Between, closes the EP not with triumph, but with question marks. After the volatility of BULLET, its restraint feels intentional. The production leaves more space; the vocal delivery feels less armoured. Thematically, it addresses the central tension ELLIS articulated while making the EP: how do you exist in the middle when you’re wired for extremes? Compared to the explosive plea of Save Your Roses and the confrontation of WEAPON, this song doesn’t try to overpower the chaos. It sits with it. It acknowledges depression, recovery, breakup and industry anxiety without promising resolution.
Across the five tracks, there’s a clear emotional arc. Evergreen Misery introduces the cycle. WEAPON examines complicity within it. Save Your Roses reframes addiction through longing and urgency. BULLET embodies the anger and fallout. And Somewhere In Between attempts to find stillness without pretending the darkness has disappeared. The songs don’t contradict each other; they mirror different stages of the same struggle. What makes the EP compelling is that it doesn’t glamorise relapse or despair. ELLIS openly speaks about cancelling her first headline tour to enter rehab, about the phobia of flying that fuelled pill addiction, about almost quitting music entirely. That context bleeds into the record. The heavier guitars aren’t aesthetic, they’re cathartic. The pop instincts aren’t commercial compromise, they’re survival tools. There’s intention behind the collision of explosive production and poetic, vulnerable lyrics.
This is MOTHICA choosing not to run from the darkness she’s long been drawn to, but to repurpose it. Rather than positioning sobriety as a clean finish line, Somewhere In Between portrays recovery as messy, nonlinear and deeply human. It doesn’t resolve the tension between light and dark. It acknowledges it. And in doing so, the EP earns its title. It lives in that uncomfortable middle ground, not fully healed, not fully broken. Just honest.
Score: 8/10
Somewhere In Between will be released on Friday 20th February via Sharptone Records.
Words: Mia Gailey
Photos: Mothica
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