Andy Gruhin Puts Pain Into Perspective on Hannah
Andy Gruhin’s Hannah is a record about living with something that hurts without letting the hurt become the only thing left. Released September 18, the ten-track debut moves through grief, anger, fear, fatherhood, and the grueling process of finding a way forward, all while maintaining a beautifully cohesive sound. Gruhin blends classic singer-songwriter storytelling with modern emo, pairing melodic guitars and softer synths with heavier drums and shifts in intensity throughout the record.
“Concrete” immediately sets that tone. As the opening track, it pulls you into the record without taking long to establish what Gruhin is doing musically. There is an anthemic quality to it that gives the album a perfect entry point before the more personal moments begin to unfold. From there, “Safe” featuring Aaron Gillespie and Arnie Woods brings a different kind of weight, especially in the repeated line, “I just wanna feel safe inside your arms again.” The song carries that longing without needing to explain it, and the scream of “please get me out / get me out of this mother fucking house” turns the emotion into something much more cathartic. The cursing throughout the record is part of what makes the writing feel so human. Gruhin lets himself say things exactly as they come out, especially when a cleaner version would lose the point entirely.
That same directness carries into “Glue,” which leans more melodic and drum-forward while soft synths sit underneath it. The song has a gentler musical approach, but the lyrics still carry plenty of weight, particularly in “kiss the words upon the pages of the letters that I saved you.” It is one of several moments where the strength of Hannah comes down to how vivid and picturesque Gruhin’s writing is. There are so many specific thoughts packed into these songs that the bigger picture starts to come together naturally. You can hear the anger, confusion, guilt, and exhaustion in the way he writes, and the contrast between those lyrics and some of the softer instrumentation keeps the album fresh without losing the message.
“PTSD” takes that tension somewhere much more volatile. “Stuck in a fantasy / I lost my sanity / fuck your condolences / they weren’t meant for me” sounds like the aftermath of a crashout, and the song gives itself room to sound as messy as that thought suggests. The placement works within the album, too.
“PTSD” pushes everything outward before “Cursed” pulls it back in. The interlude is stripped down and quiet, with “I think I’m fucking cursed” repeated over a sparse beat. It is a small moment, but it gives the record a necessary pause before “My Basement” kicks off what feels like the album’s second half or B-side set.
“My Basement” is another track that stands out because of how plainly it approaches isolation. “Hiding in my basement / I don’t wanna face shit/ dealing with my PTSD / I don’t wanna say shit” is blunt, relatable, and completely in line with the way Gruhin writes throughout the album. There is no attempt to dress the feeling up. The song gives the record another shift in energy while keeping its central emotional thread intact, and by this point the album’s cohesion becomes especially apparent.
“Turn to Stone” featuring Elijah Gibb continues that progression before “Bobby” changes the temperature again. The softer, folk-leaning arrangement gives the harmonies plenty of room to shine, making it one of the album’s most immediately memorable songs. The song, written about Gruhin’s first-born son, has some of the album’s most beautiful harmonies. It is one of the first songs that immediately stood out, largely because of how naturally the softer arrangement fits alongside everything that came before it.
“Fear of Flying” is another immediate standout. There is an almost cinematic quality to the melody, especially when those guitar lines come in underneath Gruhin’s vocals. Gruhin’s haunting lyric, “I have this recurring dream where I watch myself slowly fall asleep,” adds another layer to a song that is already built around fear and the guilt that can come with experiencing happiness after loss. It is one of the clearest examples of how Hannah can take an incredibly heavy subject and turn it into something musically inviting.
By the time “The Sun and the Moon” closes the record, Hannah has spent nine tracks building toward this point without losing its sense of direction. The closing track sounds like the culmination of everything that came before it, carrying the same central ideas into the final stretch. That consistency is one of the album’s biggest strengths. Each song has its own character, but they belong together, and the sequencing makes the record work especially well as a complete listen.
The first instinct after hearing Hannah was to sit with it and enjoy it. The album has a lot to say, but it never makes the listener work through unnecessary layers to get there. Gruhin has made something cathartic without making catharsis the entire point. The pain is present in nearly every corner of the record, but so are the moments that make it possible to keep listening. Hannah gives you plenty to think about, but it also gives you plenty of reasons to press play again.
Review by Bek Allegretti