7/10

Devon Michael has spent much of her career moving between songwriting and composition, but the music surrounding Grant Me the Serenity finds those two instincts meeting particularly naturally. Written for Jessica Pinfield’s short film of the same name, the new two-track release explores the uneasy space between loving somebody, fearing for them and recognising that their choices may ultimately sit beyond your control.

The film centres on a recovering alcoholic father whose delayed return home sends his daughter spiralling back towards damaging behaviours of her own. Devon’s score follows that emotional deterioration closely, beginning from a comparatively exposed piano motif before allowing harsher, industrial textures to creep into the arrangement.

Throughout, the piano represents something recognisable and human, while the surrounding sounds become increasingly unsettled, suggesting circumstances gathering beyond the character’s ability to contain them. But not to overwhelm the central melody, those darker elements push against it, preserving a sense of identity beneath the anxiety.

Then original song ‘Embers’ arrives after the score as an emotional coda, stepping away from the immediate panic of the film and considering what remains once the crisis has passed. Its focus on the boundary between empathy and self-preservation gives the release its most quietly affecting idea.

Taken together, the two pieces reveal very different sides of the same emotional landscape. The score captures the tightening pressure of uncertainty, while ‘Embers’ deals with the slower work of understanding what cannot be controlled.

Grant Me the Serenity therefore feels less like a conventional soundtrack release than a compact study of emotional boundaries. Devon Michael moves convincingly from tension to reflection, finding something deeply intimate in the moment when love has to coexist with letting go.