This album cover image released by Interscope Records shows “The Secret of Us” by Gracie Abrams. succumbs to a crush on “Risk,” the lead single of her frantic and melancholic sophomore album, “The Secret of Us.”
That immersion is achieved through the album’s production, a collaboration between Abrams, her longtime collaborator Aaron Dessner and co-writer Audrey Hobert, with cameos from Bonus track “Close to You,” produced by Sam de Jong and reworked after a clip of it went viral, lives more in the magnetic world of Lorde and Ellie Goulding’s 2010s hits than it does in Abrams’ own — but showcases a pop persona that peeks through on “The Secret of Us.”