On “Hate It When I See Ya,” Sienna Melgoza shares a slow-burning confession that lands like a late-night memory you can’t slip entirely. It’s the sort of song that doesn’t just play, it sticks around. Layered over a slick mix of an R&B-tinged brand of alt-pop, the song builds slowly around you, entangling you in its syrupy world while Sienna’s voice mellowly exposes the pain of missing someone who isn’t around anymore.
Melgoza’s storytelling is intimate and raw, a whispered truth between friends at 2 a.m. The production is brief, leaving room for her to shine through. The taller the song gets, the bigger my emotion becomes, and you feel these waves of bittersweet tension rising underneath her voice as she acknowledges feeling a sting at seeing someone she once loved, still tied to that feeling even when she shouldn’t be.
Then there’s this push and pull to “Hate It When I See Ya.” It’s enticing and gentle on the surface, but tinged with pain, a testament to the dual nature of heartbreak. Melgoza nails that oh-so-relatable mix of wanting distance but aching for closeness, investing every lyric with raw emotion and meaning. This song seems like the ideal anthem for anyone stuck between moving on and holding on. Sienna Melgoza not only sings about heartache, but she transforms it into something magnetic and genuinely human.