With the release of the record Like A Woman by Kacy Hill, another star has been put in the sky.

That is, we (the sad girls and gays) have another firey, melancholy, lyrically-brilliant genius of an alternative songstress — to add to the likes of Florence + The Machine, Lana Del Rey, Lorde and Fka Twigs.

Quite like the aforementioned singers, in that Kacy Hill shares signature qualities from each.

Aesthetically, the record is something of a mixture of Born To Die (by Lana Del Rey) and Melodrama (by Lorde) — featuring both aggressive hip-hop beats, ambient bass, strings (sometimes super strings), passive vocals (at times) and an accusative, somewhat depressing and lush writing style.

Kacy Hill resembles Lana Del Rey and Lorde particularly with the tone — which is husky yet feminine.

The tone is best showcased in the title song, which is a casual and pure embrace of sexuality, as the speaker creates for the world a space where sex is not so taboo so that expressing desire is not such a political statement — and in this way, resembling Fka Twigs.

As said earlier: oftentimes Kacy Hill takes a passive tone, sonically and lyrically. Like Lana Del Rey: she never gives her lover a name, referring to him mostly as “you,” and at times sounds blissfully sedated.

Other times, the singer resembles Florence Welch in that she also has a tendency to belt the chorus; this is illustrated magnificently in Hard To Love, which is not only a song to shake your ass to — but a lyrical masterpiece, particularly in the belted chorus:

“Tell me nothing has changed,
That words still hold all the same
And you, you make it hard to love.
You make it hard to —
Darling, promises filled.
You’re holding onto their failure now
‘Cause you make it hard to love.
You make it hard to love.
You make it hard to love.”

And in the bridge:

You make it hard to love.
I forgot how your world could make me feel weightless,
Now you just pull me down from my graces.
‘Cause you make it hard to love.
You make it hard to love.
‘Cause you make it hard…

I might also note that these two sections of the song and much of the rest of the album employ the use of some rather stretched out slant rhymes — which makes the record much like the rest of what is produced by GOOD Music Records (Kanye’s label, which puts out rap and hip hop music) as well as the poetry of Emily Dickinson.

This makes many of the songs on “Like A Woman” sound like hymns mixed with electronica.

There is not a single filler track on the record; even track eight, titled Interlude, has purpose — which is to hammer in the album as chamber pop, it’s something you would hear in an old and abandoned church.

The aforementioned songs Like A Woman and Hard To Love are two of the best songs on the record, others are

• Lion, where the speaker compares herself to a lion after the lover has lied to her. The track features a dangerous beat in a minor key — featuring both trap percussion and acoustic sounds (such as clapping) — something akin to Lorde by the virtue of empowerment for the listener.
• Cruel, which has brilliantly written lyrics about how the speaker’s heart doesn’t care about what is good for her; and how the speaker falls in love at first sight, making her suffer.
• Say You’re Wrong, with a delightfully breezy melody which scales up and down in the chorus and inflects upwards in the verses. This track is also a lyrical masterpiece about how the speaker wishes that her lover would have the humility “to say he’s wrong.”

All in all, Kacy Hill has finally catapulted herself into the the realm of melancholy songstresses who inspire us to be the strong counterparts to macho men, doe-eyed sexual beings and larger-than-life lovers.

“Like A Woman” will likely be nominated for a Grammy but lose to Lana Del Rey’s Lust For Life.