With Maisie Peters having released the deluxe version of her second studio album, The Good Witch, (2023) on Friday, Oct. 27, now seems like a good time to look at the album in its entirety, including the six new deluxe tracks.

The Good Witch is unapologetically dramatic, full of scream-it-out-the-car-window choruses. Peters opens the deluxe track “The Song” by proclaiming sentiments that everyone who still isn’t over Jake Gyllenhall taking Taylor Swift’s scarf can relate to.

“My thing is, I haven’t gotten over like one thing since I was 17,” Peters sings. 

In an interview with People Magazine, Peters discussed the ways in which the album’s title, and indeed, the album as a whole, represents a reclamation of power for her. 

“There’s femininity in that, there’s power in it; destruction,” Peters said. “There’s a sense of control, which I love. Obviously, on the first album I was very heartbroken, and it’s ironic the way that turned out for me was obviously not in my power, and that’s maybe why I was so inspired and The Good Witch made me able to take that back.”

Now, let’s talk specifics.

The Good (Witch): 

Standout songs include “Coming of Age,” “The Band and I,” “Run,” “There It Goes,” “Holy Revival,” “Guy on a Horse.”

Fans of Olivia Rodrigo’s “get him back!” or Beach Bunny’s “Nice Guys” will find a lot to appreciate here. The album’s strongest tracks are its bitter pop-rock bops, which simultaneously boast acerbic wit and relatable vulnerability. In “BSC,” this combination is encapsulated in a single lyric. 

“Mr. I Don’t Want a Label / you made me Little Miss Unstable,” Peters sings. 

She acknowledges her own emotional instability while at the same time bashing her ex’s inability to commit. The other tracks similarly boast bitingly creative insults expertly woven into irresistibly singable choruses. 

“Got this far, but I’m Joan of Arc / and you’re just a guy on a horse,” she sings in the song “Guy On A Horse.”

The insults continue in “Run.”

“If your heart says broke and your friends say ‘don’t’/it’s an RIP / you better run, as fast as you can / take a quick sharp turn at the sight of a man,” she sings.

Lyrics like these are caustic enough to make the album’s title feel laughably ironic at times.

That said, Peters does sincerity just as well. “The Band and I” is a heartfelt track in the tradition of Taylor Swift’s “Long Live,” sung in a conversational manner that gives it the feel of a journal entry or a late-night chat with a best friend. When she belts out the final lines, the song feels like a universal soundtrack for coming of age, despite its hyper-specificity to Peters’ life. 

“In Philadelphia, it was crystal clear / we are the best damn band that’s ever played right here,” she sings. 

“There It Goes,” although topically different, is similarly sincere in its sentiments. As the album’s penultimate track, it provides a sense of closure and healing to the raw emotions dredged up by the previous songs. Opening with the hopeful imagery of sunflowers, “There It Goes” perfectly encapsulates what it is to be happy for the first time in a long time. By the end of the song, Peters has gone from “[making] it to September” to triumphantly proclaiming “I wake up, and it’s October/the loss is yours.”

The Not-so-Good:

My least favorite tracks: “Want You Back,” “Two Weeks Ago,” “Therapy,” “Truth Is.”

My least favorite songs on the album can all be lumped into a single category: breakup ballads. This group, epitomized by “Two Weeks Ago,” is generic sad-girl-pop that loses Peters’ distinctive voice. 

“I wish it was two weeks ago / when you said we’re like your mum and dad / knew you loved me babe, when you told me that,” she sings. 

Lines like this simply don’t pack the same punch as songs like “Coming of Age” or “Holy Revival”; they’re bogged down in angsty self-pity that lacks the self-awareness of her other songs, and therefore just ends up coming off as whiny.

It’s for this reason that, of the six deluxe tracks, there’s only one that clearly feels like a reject from the original album to me, and that’s “Truth Is.” While it is one of two so-called breakup ballads included in the deluxe tracks, “Truth Is” is lyrically much weaker than its counterpart, “Yoko.” Again, like “Two Weeks Ago” or “Want You Back,” the lyrics of “Truth Is” are blandly generic and thus lack any degree of emotional relatability for the listener.

In conclusion, The Good Witch is a perfect album for pop music fans, especially those who are looking for memorable choruses to scream-sing along to. Peters’ second record is a step up from her first in just about every way, and fans should only expect her popularity to grow as she continues to release more music.

Anna Thomas can be reached at asthomas@wesleyan.edu.