Greeting us with a bold wave of bossa nova, there is instantly a feeling of classic swing in the opening bars of “Truth Hurts,” as it’s interpreted by one Angela Hench at least, that asks for us to welcome the material into our hearts right off the bat. This feeling just gets stronger as we press along in the song, the strings getting some tonal support that only adds to their regal quality. Hench starts to sing, but her emotions are muted by the bombastic nature of her verse; for it is not what she describes that we’re to focus on here, but the actual way she’s presenting it to the audience. Establishing context is important in pop performance as much as it is in songwriting, but in this case, it’s the cornerstone of an entire performance.
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The music video for “Truth Hurts” makes the most of its rhythmic tensions with an unspoken restlessness in our leading lady that seems to bring elements of the soundtrack we had never before noticed into the fold. There’s a way to read the panache here as juxtaposed with what is being implied in the standard nature of the video, but I don’t think we were meant to look at this release for its artistic moxie alone. Angela Hench is deliberately giving us something that relates as much to celebration as it does to honest reflection in this component of the track, and making it rather difficult for even harder journalists to accuse her of being single-threaded as a cover artist in this instance.
This version of “Truth Hurts” features a relationship between artist and instrumentation that occasionally verges on overindulgence when we witness firsthand just how potent Angela Hench’s singing can become when she’s faced with such a straightforward melody, but I think this was part of her game plan all along. There’s nowhere for her to escape from the audience in this piece quite literally, and by simulating a suffocating emotional experience through the very construction of the music in this song, we’re given access to a poetic statement that simply isn’t tangible when offered up in a synthesized performance. This is why stimulating covers like hers are trending as well as they are in 2023, and I won’t be the lone critic to say so by any means.
I’ve been listening to Angela Hench for a good minute now, and I am continually intrigued by what she decides to put out. “Truth Hurts” isn’t a wildly different sound from what I heard before now, but it feels meant to further solidify the potential of her artistry inside of a multifaceted single and video. In this respect, Angela Hench raised the bar for a lot of her peers currently trying to break out of the underground this summer and anyone who has been vying for a share of the spotlight in recent years. She earns all of the mad buzz she’s been scoring here, and I think most will agree with me in saying this is her best song yet.
Garth Thomas