Nicky Phillips’ Words Unsaid Turns Grief Into Intimate Indie-Folk Storytelling

Nicky Phillips' Words Unsaid is her second EP, with the five-track project touching on grief that came after the loss of her Nan, Dad and Aunt within a few years apart. Written in 2022, the personal nature of the songs led Nicky to learn music production so she could self-produce the album and have more control over the way the emotions came across in her music. The EP opens and closes with a stripped-back piano-led song featuring cello from Manchester duo The 2 Fellos, while the three tracks in between highlight bolder vocals and fuller arrangements. Tracks like "Find Me", "Hold On, Let Go" and "How Can I Try" tackle grief from different emotional viewpoints, focusing on memory, regret, acceptance and the difficulty that comes with processing unresolved feelings. Across Words Unsaid, Nicky Phillips brings those experiences into indie, folk and pop songwriting that has remained a key part of her music, while also showing contrasts between quieter and more intense moments as a reflection of the different ways grief is experienced.

The Grief-Focused Songwriting Across Words Unsaid

The way Nicky Phillips expresses grief is seen vividly through the songwriting across Words Unsaid, as this kind of approach plays a key role in showing how that feeling is seen from different emotional perspectives. "Find Me" takes on a softer and more reflective perspective, with the lyrics focusing on how at times, someone and a reminder of them can appear in unexpected places. Lines like "You'll find me where the flowers bloom" and "under your feet catching your fall" gives the song a nice, soothing and comforting quality, almost like the person being remembered is still present in everyday moments and surroundings. The repeated idea of "you'll find me" also gives the songs this sense of there being a continued presence, which aligns with the musical elements of the song that encompass gentler piano and cello arrangements.

"Hold On, Let Go" focuses more on how grief can feel conflicting as the lyrics touch on regret, emotional weight and the struggle that often comes from trying to hold onto certain feelings while also trying to release them. Lines like "thoughts you'll never get to say" and "the feelings of regret" bring that sense of unfinished emotion into the song, adding more weight to how grief can stay with you long after a person has passed. The repeated "hold on" and "let go" phrases show how these two feelings of wanting to let go of regret, while still holding onto it are feelings that can coexist alongside each other. The lyrics later transition towards lines that try to make sense of what remains, especially through phrases like "make sense of all the mysteries" and "all the stories untold" which gives the song an overall more reflective quality without making it feel like loss can be resolved easily.

The Musical Contrast Across Words Unsaid

The musical contrast seen across Words Unsaid gives the EP a stronger sense of progression, especially as the difference is notable in the opening and closing tracks, along with the three tracks between them. The first and last tracks have a more stripped-back approach to them, where the piano and cello performed by  The 2 Fellos sounds gentler and more restrained, while the middle tracks showcase bolder vocals and fuller arrangement. With all of these elements coming together, the overall EP has a stronger sense of intensity, with the differences allowing the album to transition naturally between quiet and more pronounced moments without making the songs feel detached from one another.

Nicky Phillips' has described the EP as being "the calm, the chaos, and then the calm again" which fits very well with how each of the songs have been arranged, as the differences noted in the production give each track its own character. Her description of the EP helps us understand why this record doesn't feel like its approaching grief as being a one-dimensional feeling, since emotional changes seen across the record helps us understand that grief can feel inconsistent. The result of that is a five-track release that feels varied in a way it presents said emotions, while still keeping the theme of grief closely connected from beginning to end.

Check out the album below and you can keep up with NIcky on Instagram here.