Album Review: William Harries Graham’s Annie’s House

Native Austin son and singer-songwriter comes of age with fourth LP

Reviewed by Doug Freeman, Fri., Oct. 25, 2024

photo by Col Elmore

Austin can often take its homegrown musical talent for granted. We watched them grow up on our small club stages, fumble through teenage feelings as they searched for a sound and something to say, and then try to unshackle themselves from the dichotomy of local appreciation and dreaded weight of “promise.”

William Harries Graham certainly understands that tension. At age 6, he made his performing debut at the Austin Music Awards; through high school, he led second-generation teen titans the Painted Redstarts; and he followed his father, revered rocker Jon Dee Graham, in becoming a Continental Club fixture as he tuned solo while attending UT.

So what makes Graham's fourth LP, Annie’s House, so remarkable is that he is able to shed those Austin expectations and craft what feels like his first album beyond them. Now in his mid-20s, he shows a confidence in his songwriting even as it grapples with the ambiguities and doubts that strafe first loves, restless youth, and discovering yourself. He sheds some of the ambient distortion that defined his previous efforts Jakes and St. Claire, and propels an easy indie rock balladry in contrast to 2023's lo-fi mix There Are Only Endings.

On his debut for New West imprint Strolling Bones Records, the 10 tracks of Annie’s House play out as a relationship in reverse. The album turns through a blur of intimate snapshot memories, like journal entries trying to make sense of moments and emotions, and carrying a wistfulness of reflecting on a scene even as you're living through it, watching it slipping past. A constant tension between the selfish solipsism of youth and complex connection with a lover coils across the album, leaving Graham bruised and broken at the outset on "Yourself" – "not living with yourself, just living with a memory."

Recorded after-hours with Gordy Quist, the burn of late-night revelations and regrets sears the songs. Graham’s vocals throughout play subdued, with a rasp of weariness that torques through feelings like a young Conor Oberst or Will Sheff, especially on standout “Annie Are You There,” lingering with a deep loneliness of the want and fevered, paranoid wondering about an absent partner after a fight. Graham punches the line “tonight I wish we had taken that jump/ we could have given up, on giving up, on giving up” with an ambiguity of which side of the heartbreak he’s on, but buried in the heartbreak nonetheless. Likewise “Brooklyn” wanders the empty streets with the residue of falling apart.

The guitar wail of “Ohio State” shifts into the moments of the relationship set on the edge of something serious, casting nets into potential futures, as “George and Steve” runs through the city with reckless and restless unfolding of possibility.

If the LP’s A-side buckles with the brutal fights and swirling emotions, the back half unfolds with the uncertainty of falling in love. The disjointed guitar and piano mirror the tentativeness to leave a lover and face the world, staring at the ceiling unsure of anything. And the delicate “Maybe That’s the Way to Your Heart” and anxiousness of “Philadelphia” capture the first sparking feelings of a connection to something more emerging.

Closer “Same as When We Were Kids” brings the album full circle, and restarts the relationship song cycle with the tough recognition that the two were friends long before they were lovers. What is lost now feels so much deeper with the realization, and recontextualizes everything that came before.

Graham is fearless in his songwriting and willingness to pick at scars, and the result for Annie’s House is not only a powerful LP, but one that lifts the artist beyond his roots to embark on a new path.