There’s a particular kind of nerve it takes to open a song quietly when you clearly know you’ve got a voice that could knock the plaster off the walls if you wanted. Less understands that restraint is power, and Hellya starts by leaning into it, letting that clean, wounded guitar line sit in the room like an unanswered question. There’s an immediate Radiohead-ish unease to it, that early-Creep sense of emotional isolation, but it doesn’t feel like cosplay. It feels lived in. The tension is real, and it earns the right to exist before the song ever raises its voice.
Then there’s Less herself. Her vocal is the song’s backbone, and it’s hard not to clock the Joni Mitchell comparison straight away — not because she’s mimicking phrasing or melody, but because there’s a similar emotional intelligence at work. She knows when to lean into a note and when to pull back, when to sound exposed and when to harden up. It’s a confident performance without being smug, raw without tipping into melodrama. That’s a harder balance to strike than people think, and she mostly nails it.
As Hellya unfolds, the band resist the urge to rush the payoff. The arrangement builds patiently, guitars thickening, the rhythm section quietly adding weight, the whole thing feeling like it’s being wound tighter with every bar. When the song finally lets rip, it feels justified — a release rather than a trick. That “raw, rock-infused outburst” the band talk about is very much here, but it’s controlled chaos, not flailing angst. You can hear an artist deliberately stepping into a louder, bolder version of herself.
What works particularly well is how the song frames frustration not as a tantrum, but as a slow-burn realisation. There’s an apathy at the core of Hellya, but it’s the dangerous kind — the sort that eventually flips into action. That makes the chorus hit harder, because it doesn’t feel like it’s shouting for attention. It feels like a line being crossed. Less sounds like someone who’s tired of negotiating with herself, and that honesty gives the track real weight.
Hellya isn’t perfect, what is? For all the strength of the build, the song could benefit from one more moment of unpredictability. The structure is solid, but a sharper left turn — a sudden drop, a harsher guitar tone, a more confrontational vocal moment — might have pushed it from very good to genuinely unforgettable. At times, you sense Less playing it just a touch safe with the arrangement, especially given how fearless the emotional intent is.
Still, as a statement of direction, Hellya does exactly what it needs to do. It positions Less as an artist moving away from introspective balladry and into something more confrontational, more physical, without losing her emotional depth. The song feels like a bridge between who she’s been and who she’s about to become, and those are often the most interesting moments in an artist’s catalogue.
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