SLOAN TREACY was any of it real?

Sloan Treacy’s second EP, was any of it real?, feels like reading someone’s journal under moonlight raw, confessional, and strangely comforting in its uncertainty. At just sixteen, Sloan demonstrates a lyrical precision and emotional candor that most seasoned artists spend years chasing. Where her debut Stuck introduced a promising young voice, this follow-up fully asserts her place among the new generation of singer-songwriters crafting emotionally intelligent, quietly powerful music. Split between the sonic cultures of Nashville and Los Angeles, the EP captures both vulnerability and bold experimentation.

The opener, “The Good Part,” disarms immediately with its understated arrangement and lyrical honesty. Anchored by acoustic strums and subtle electronic flourishes, Sloan’s voice arrives not with force, but with gentle clarity as though letting the listener in on a private epiphany. The line “we mistook the feeling of falling for finally feeling free” is a gut-punch wrapped in silk, revealing a songwriter who knows how to pierce with softness rather than volume. It’s a track that manages to sound both spontaneous and deeply considered, as if it arrived fully formed from a place of quiet reckoning.

“Mirage” blurs the line between memory and wishful thinking, turning nostalgia into a sonic mirage of its own. The layered vocals and swelling guitars don’t just accompany the lyrics they embody them, drawing listeners into a surreal soundscape that feels like sleepwalking through a moment you’re not sure ever happened. The track doesn’t seek resolution; instead, it revels in the beauty of ambiguity. Sloan leans into the blur, proving that clarity isn’t always the goal when emotion is the guide.

Bringing it all home is “The Edge,” a closing track that doesn’t just end the EP it launches it into orbit. With its driving rhythm and cinematic rise, it captures the feeling of standing at the brink of something vast and unknowable. You can hear the tension in Sloan’s voice, that stretch between fear and desire, between staying safe and leaping forward. Originally born from a school assignment, the song has taken on a life of its own much like the artist who created it. was any of it real? isn’t just an EP; it’s a time capsule of youth unfolding in real time, and Sloan Treacy is the rare artist who knows how to make growing up sound like poetry.

Written by Patrick