REVIEW: Anna Margo Lets the Pendulum Swing Between Confidence and Collapse on ‘Swings’
WRITTEN BY MATILIA
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Photo by Andrea Riba
Anna Margo doesn’t treat emotional contradiction as a problem to solve on Swings. She treats it as the point itself. Across seven tracks, the Los Angeles-based artist, producer and multi-instrumentalist moves between self-belief and self-doubt, desire and detachment, control and complete unraveling. The project seamlessly captures the instability of your twenties without forcing those extremes into a clean resolution. Instead, Margo lets each feeling remain just as complicated as it arrived.
The EP begins with “Aligned,” an opener built around momentum, independence and the confidence of trusting that every scar led somewhere essential. In this track, Margo sounds assured as she tunes out the people watching her progress from a distance, but the confidence never feels hollow. Her vocals move with the production rather than simply resting over it, giving the song the sensation of doors opening in real time. The song’s charm lies within the way its lyrical content is less about having every answer than deciding she no longer needs permission to keep moving.
Then “Brainrot” swings in the opposite direction. The certainty of the opener gives way to the mental overwhelm presented within this track—to the physical anxiety and the fear of being left alone with a mind that has become difficult to trust. Margo’s hypnotic R&B production gives the spiral shape without softening it. Her voice remains controlled even as the lyrics admit, “I scare myself sometimes,” creating an effective divide between how composed someone can sound and how unstable they can feel. The song encompasses the exhaustion of endlessly restarting, promising yourself that this month will be different and still ending up trapped in the same internal room.
“Coding” carries that looping quality into a relationship, but Margo is no longer the person stuck in place. Here, she watches someone else remain frozen and unable to close the door. The clipped repetition of “coding,” “frozen” and “holding” makes the heart sound almost mechanical, as though it’s running the same failed program long after the relationship has ended. There is confidence in the track, but there’s also an awareness that being unforgettable can become its own form of emotional entanglement.
Meanwhile, “Diamond” provides the project with its warmest release. Its nostalgic R&B textures and romantic playfulness make attraction feel simple for a few minutes, replacing overanalysis with touch, chemistry and the possibility of something uncomplicated. Margo’s delivery is lighthearted without risking losing the atmospheric quality that connects the EP, and the song doesn’t interrupt the project’s emotional logic. Instead, it represents the other side of it: the brief rush that makes the harder falls possible to endure.
That fall arrives through “Selfish” and “Easier,” two songs that examine self-protection from different angles. On “Selfish,” leaving becomes an act of clarity after safety, trust and patience have already been exhausted. Margo rejects the idea that choosing herself automatically makes her cruel, even as she acknowledges the wreckage left behind. “Easier” turns the lens inward. Instead of defending the decision to leave, she admits to preparing for an ending before the relationship has a chance to begin. Her pride becomes armor and another person’s open heart becomes something she can weaponize. Together, the songs complicate any easy division between the person who hurts and the person who gets hurt.
The EP closes with “Satisfied,” its most emotionally raw moment. In it, Margo directs her questions toward faith, securityand the fear that fulfillment may always remain just out of reach. The production leaves enough room for that uncertainty to expand, while the repeated title begins to sound less like a question with an answer and more like one she's learned to live with. After an EP full of self-assurance and emotional extremes, “Satisfied” ends by acknowledging that not every fear can be reasoned away.
Swings works because its title describes more than mood changes. The project moves like a pendulum between the version of Margo who believes she can do anything and the one who isn’t sure she can make it through the night. Yet the production, writing and vocal choices keep those versions connected.
Because Margo wrote, produced and recorded the project herself while leading its creative direction, every shift feels intentional without feeling overly polished. The result is a body of work that understands self-assurance and uncertainty aren’t opposites, but often, they're simply two sides of the same person.