Mya Angelique’s debut EP, paper girls, is filled with glossy heartbreak and curated chaotic themes where teenage emotion is often repackaged into marketable clichés. Composed mostly when Angelique was just 15, the seven-track record isn’t just a collection of songs; it’s a scrapbook of adolescence pressed between distortion pedals and whispered confessions.
From the first note of opener ‘sixteen’, Angelique sets the tone: aching, honest, and beautifully raw. The track is a bittersweet anthem about the desperate performance of growing up in a costume worn for the world, stitched together from insecurity and yearning.
Angelique’s influences are clear; fans of Olivia Rodrigo, Gracie Abrams, and Maisie Peters will feel at home in her sound. There’s a cinematic sweep to her songwriting that feels bigger than bedroom pop, even as her lyrics remain achingly intimate. The entire EP pulses with that same teenage electricity: everything matters too much, every feeling is the end and the beginning.
Tracks like ‘quick-brush’ show Angelique’s quieter strengths, her ability to tuck devastation between soft melodies and tender, unflinching words. It’s a song about the slow erosion of self-worth, so subtle it nearly vanishes into its own silence. In contrast, ‘the boy in the band’ is playful and punchy, a cheeky love letter to the universal musician crush. It’s self-aware without being cynical, capturing the charm and cringeworthy nature of first infatuations.
The centrepiece, however, is ‘paper girls’, a track that holds the emotional spine of the EP. Angelique uses the metaphor of a paper girl to explore perfectionism, performance, and the thin layers of identity we construct to survive. It’s fragile, yes, but fiercely so. The song dares to unfold itself, creases and all, revealing the vulnerability beneath the polish.
On ‘the comedow’, Angelique trades her sparkle for starkness. It’s a quiet reckoning with emotional aftermath, a song that doesn’t resolve so much as it settles, like dust after a storm. And with ‘teenage girl nationality’, she taps into the chaotic brilliance of girlhood. It’s biting, funny, and unfiltered, a rallying cry for anyone who’s ever used humour to hide hurt or glitter to cover the cracks.
The final track, ‘glitter’, brings the EP full circle. It’s soft, sad, and shimmery; a song about comparison, disappointment, and the dazzling trap of “almost”. She sparkles, but she’s not gold, and that, as Angelique reminds us, is the heartbreak of growing up.
The EP is a love letter to the girls who feel too much, laugh too loud, and carry the weight of being “okay” even when they’re not. It’s a reminder that girlhood is not fragile; it’s folded. And inside those folds, Mya Angelique is writing something unforgettable.
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