Gena Rose Bruce – Can’t Make You Love Me

“With her strong vocals flitting between silky-smooth and commandingly gritty… Gena Rose Bruce is carving a sound distinctly her own” SYDNEY MORNING HERALD 

“A smoky yet polished indie-rock delight. Wonderful stuff.” Triple J 

“Utter beauty and palpable sincerity.” THE 405 

“Really love her… Her voice just sends me” NPR 

Gena Rose Bruce’s debut record Can’t Make You Love Me is an intoxicating ride through love, lust, self-destruction and surrender. The album is being released by Dot Dash Records, a subsidiary label of Remote Control Records whose focus is on promoting and nurturing homegrown Australian acts. Over the years Dot Dash has worked with Methyl Ethel, Chet Faker, Wolf & Cub, King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard, Client Liaison, Banoffee, Total Giovanni, Gabriella Cohen and many other artists. 

There’s a vibrant youthfulness and deep maturity that underpins Bruce’s songwriting, which allows Can’t Make You Love Me to swing effortlessly between earnest introspection and cool detachment with utter sincerity. Intimate and ungraspable, Bruce’s vocals drive this album; a stirring force amidst the pulsing rhythms, echoes of Mazzy Star and Lynchian undertones. Sonically, it moves between lush, subtle synths and melodic guitar work, held together by a raw, rocking backing section. 

Can’t Make You Love Me was produced by Tim Harvey (Teeth & Tongue, Lisa Mitchell) and features notable performances from musician Jade Imagine on bass and guitar. Shortly before recording in December 2017, Bruce pulled herself out of a toxic relationship, shifting focus entirely towards her debut record. “I quit my job, gave up the room I was renting and left the whole situation. I spent 3 months alone at a family property in Warrnambool (a remote coastal city in the South-West of Victoria, Australia) and wrote the album. It was a healing time.” 

Gena Rose Bruce 

Can’t Make You Love Me 

Secluded and eerily quiet, Bruce credits the album’s darker edges in part to this environment; “It’s not a sunny beach town, it’s very melancholic.” It was here that she regained focus and confidence, entering a period of intense creative output. The fruitful product of this isolation, Can’t Make You Love Me interlaces infectious melodies and sultry vocal performances with biting lyricism that is both playful and confessional. Bruce presents a refreshing brand of vulnerability through unfettered explorations of her life choices, as exemplified in ‘Coming Down’, which ‘represents a time in my life where I stopped caring for most things, including myself. It’s a song about self destruction and at the same time being aware of your actions and their consequences.” 

The first single & break-up anthem ‘Rearview,’ takes a further step forward, moving into wistful acceptance of failed love. “This song is essentially a conversation I could never have with this person,” Bruce explains – a statement that applies to much of the record. Conversely, ‘I Don’t Think I’ll Ever Get Over You’ recounts the exhausting grip on a dying relationship. “I rewrote this song 4 times. It was like trying to write the perfect letter to someone. When I started it, I thought ‘I’ll never get over this’, then it became ‘I have to finish this so I can let it go’.”