Review: In her new EP, 'The Cure, The Cause, The Killer,' Bea Porges trades the jazzier textures of her debut EP, 'space & time,' for bittersweet indie-pop moments.

Athens-based indie artist Bea Porges’ new EP, The Cure, The Cause, The Killer, takes a break from the jazzier textures of her 2023 EP space & time, offering instead bittersweet moments of contemplation and reflection mixed up into sweet indie-pop morsels. 

The EP prioritizes introspection over elaborate stylization, but that’s not to say the songs are any less well crafted. There’s a distinct breeziness running through the whole thing, carrying the feelings of longing, loss, and letting go in the veins of each song. Really, The Cure, The Cause, The Killer feels like a step-up production-wise. The songs sound clean and full thanks to production from fellow Athens musician Tommy Trautwein (Well Kept, Heffner) and Porges’ own artistic development over the past couple years. 

Porges has worn her heart on her sleeve when it comes to her source material. When promoting the EP, she often talks about how it’s driven by the difficulty she finds in moving on. The songs get a little richer when you learn they’re about a bandmate. Timelines seem to get blurry amidst the grief. You feel a loss before it’s happened. You feel a love after it’s gone.  

“Comfort of a Crowded Room” opens the EP, and we hear as Porges grasps for a sense of closeness while going through the motions of doubt in her head before the end has even come. She sings, “Pulling from my memory for a pattern / My mind knows exactly where to go / Matching up the pieces like it matters / Do you love me in your head or in your bones” over an instrumental led by a tight drum part and an aqueous, chiming guitar riff. 

Bea Porges shot by Hanna Middleton for Comfort of a Crowded Room (2023)

Porges calls track two, “Sitting Still,” the sister song to “Comfort of a Crowded Room,” but here she makes an attempt at loosening the reins on her anxieties. “I wanna feel how long I can go without touching the wheel / Holding tight and sitting still,” Porges sings as a pedal steel whines long notes in the background. She allows herself a moment of freedom from worrying about the future or planning for the worst. It’s one of the sweeter, more carefree moments of the EP, fittingly sent off into the world with a cheeky release pie. 

“While You Were Sleeping” checks in from the point in a relationship where a breakdown actually begins to happen. You get the sense that Porges feels increasingly disconnected from her partner, lamenting “I sit at home and sing all my feelings / You're getting drunk and talking to Jesus.” The next track acts as a continuation of this; “Too Soon,” is one of the most emotional moments of the EP, a touching piano ballad containing a sort of inner monologue about the decision to stay or go and being conflicted about the ways you’ve changed or conceded in a relationship. 

These two tracks may seem like ripe ground for bitterness, but there is none. The EP ends on “Slow,” where Porges asks for her partner to “Hold me ‘til we’re done,” taking another minute to linger in the dimming light of an old love before letting it go on its way. The track expands more and more as it progresses, offering a sense of release from the heartbreak and complex feelings interlaced throughout the EP. Closure may be an elusive thing, but The Cure, The Cause, The Killer gets close.