I do not know all the details of what happened to Hannah in 2020. But listening to ‘Hello to a Woman,’ you start to feel what she might have gone through. Because a lot of what is on this album sounds very familiar. Those states where the day passes like cotton. When strangers’ faces irritate like sand on skin. When everything seems fine, but your mood is like a cardboard box after the rain.

I want to start by saying that Hannah Wood is from Oregon. And this matters — not in terms of where exactly the state is on the map, but in terms of the feeling. There’s space in her sound, cold, memories of pine trees that somehow witnessed your youth. The album was born after 2020, and I admit, I already flinch a little when I hear about another artistic statement inspired by that time. But this one is different.

photo by Erin McCaffrey Photography

Hannah does not write about trauma — she writes from inside it. And still, she manages to wrap all of it in the form of pop music. That’s striking. You’d think these are two incompatible things: painful personal confessions and a structure that calls for a chorus, a bridge, a verse. But she pulls it off. Maybe because she stopped caring about what’s “right.”

When I listened to the album for the first time, I tried to analyze — are there any singles here, how clean is the production, where are the highlights, the weak spots. By the third track, I stopped. I realized this is not that kind of album. This is not something you want to break down or compare to other artists. It’s one of those where you either go in — or walk past.

I went in. And stayed.

Because at some point, it started to feel like I was not listening to Hannah, but to myself. Thoughts I had never spoken out loud. Questions I asked in the dark: when will I finally become myself? And who is that supposed to be, anyway? What does it mean to forgive? And can you really start over if you are still inside the same old body, the same old city, the same old habits?

‘Hello to a Woman’ is a story about a woman who suffered, fell down, and then stood up and went on to save others. Or maybe more like a journal of self-observation, under a microscope. Only the microscope is sound. Sometimes a synthesizer, sometimes acoustic, sometimes just Hannah’s voice — slightly strained, not quite polished, but real. Just as it should be, when you finally speak out the things you have carried for years.

Pop Without Pretending

It all starts with ‘Goodbye (Intro)’ — an a cappella opening. I would call it an emotional warm-up — a brief moment when you take a breath, focus, and say: “I am ready to speak.” A very intimate moment, and it sets the tone perfectly.

Then comes ‘Hello to a Woman’. The title track and the point where real movement begins. What strikes me here is the absence of any attempt to impress. Everything unfolds almost casually: steady guitar, deliberate vocals. But beneath that simplicity lies all the tension that has been held in for years. It is a confession — not of love, but of change. And even if no one else notices, you know it — everything inside has shifted.

photo by Erin McCaffrey Photography

‘Thank the Lord’ — and here, for the first time, I smiled. Very airy, very light. The backing vocals create a soft cushion of safety, and with every beat, something blossoms inside. There is something healing in it. And then comes ‘Elvis and Taylor’ — a completely different register. Warmer, simpler, and at the same time, stronger. This is the kind of track that could easily be overlooked, but strangely enough, it turns out to be the most memorable one.

‘Bad Light’ — this is where things start to crack a little. In a good way. Hannah’s voice here is like a thin thread pulled to its limit. I caught myself waiting: when will it snap? When will she stop holding it together? But instead, she keeps going. And that is exactly why ‘Officially over Me’ sounds so… defenseless. Closer to the end comes ‘The One Before the One’. This track has rhythm, something in it moves forward. Hannah’s voice sounds different here — there is more air, more space.

The final track, ‘Take a Break’, closes the album with a tangible sense of hope, and Hannah Wood returns to an acoustic sound, leaving you alone with her airy delivery. A very touching track that quietly suggests things will be alright.

Hannah Wood hardly aims to be heard by those scrolling through playlists looking for the next upbeat track for a party. Her album is not about triumph over hardship or about dressing trauma up in a way that will please the algorithm. ‘Hello to a Woman’ deliberately avoids standard narratives and refuses to be just another convenient soundtrack to someone else’s emotional drama. And that is exactly where its power lies: in its ability to place the listener in an uncomfortable space, forcing them to feel the things they usually look away from.

Hannah recorded an album that will probably never make it to the Billboard charts — and thank God for that, because anything real has long had no place there. Everything alive has been scrubbed, polished, mixed down into background chewing gum, made for swiping through Stories. This album is the opposite of that. It is inconvenient. And those are the ones that last. Slowly, they earn their place.

‘Hello to a Woman’ was made for you to come back to it — not right away. Maybe in a week. Maybe in a year. When things get hard again. When you need to hear that someone once went through it — and remained themselves.

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