Kelsie Kimberlin is back with a new track, “Sucker,” a brave, deeply personal glimpse into her soul, combining vulnerability and strength by the truckload. She keeps stripping away new layers of her artistry with each release, and “Sucker” is her most soul-baring moment yet.
Its production runs the gamut from soft melancholy to cinematic intensity, and Kelsie’s voice cuts through each beat with an aching clarity. Her singing is wounded but also firm, a capture of the emotional whiplash of wanting someone who’s already exited the room.
Dramatizing the song in stereo, Kimberlin helmed the official music video, her fourth solo-directed visual project. The video increases the emotional import of the track with vivid images and an intimate narrative that could have only been conjured by her. It’s a visual amplification of the song’s ache, unspooling with cinematic depth and poetic restraint.
“Sucker” is further proof of Kelsie Kimberlin’s burgeoning confidence as a songwriter, performer, and, in this case, video storyteller. She doesn’t curl up in the face of pain; she opens herself up and makes something beautiful from the wreckage. And it’s a reminder that, occasionally, the most empowering act we can muster is to articulate just how much something stings and to sing through it all the same.