Eliza Noxon is back on February 27th after nine years with her debut full-length album Good Monsters With Bad Habits. The lead single of the album “You”, released in November of 2025, is a stark and emotionally charged introduction to the record, built around spacious guitars and a rising vocal that traces the raw edges of grief. Her second single “What Else” was released on January, 20th 2026.
“You” is a song Eliza wrote a little over a year after the death of her brother. She states “Thinking back to that time, it didn’t seem like a year had passed. The grief was still all consuming. I felt isolated from the people around me, stuck in a loop of missing him, seeing him in everything and wishing I could turn back time.” This song is a darker, more angry version of her grief than she had expressed before. She says “I hear the voices of everyone who’s ever lost their person and had to figure out how to keep living with that hole in their heart.”
The album features thirteen tracks, all with their own identity. Starting with track one: “Birthday Song” – this one really draws you in with melancholy guitar and soft vocals. Track two: “What Else” – this one reminds me of her very first single “Hummingbird” in the best ways, with her higher register being featured on the chorus combined with an upbeat instrumentation. Track three: “Drag You” – I really enjoy the finger plucking of the guitar with her vocal melodies on this one. Track four: “You” – which I’ve already touched on so I will continue onto; Track five: “Bye For Now” – This one has a lovely low sound mixed with haunting vocals that I can’t help but listen to and get the chills. It’s a sad one if you really listen to the lyrics you might want some tissues. Track six: “Day After Day” – I’m not sure what effect they used on her vocals for this one but it sounds like it’s coming through a phone almost like she’s leaving a message and that is just so powerful. Track seven: “Raineth” – Obsessed with this title! This one has a bit more folk in it with a different guitar tone and punchy drums.
We’ve made it to the title track! Track eight: “Good Monsters With Bad Habits” – this one has a haunting guitar with very real lyrics, so stunning. Track nine: “More” – also a more folky track with very airy vocals. I love the contrast of the first two lines of the “you said and I said”. Track ten: “What the Waiting Was For” – what an upbeat song with a classic double handclap, feeling like overcoming the hardships was worth it. Track eleven: “Last of Our Own Kind” – we’ve stumbled upon another sad one, very beautiful but I may cry. Track twelve: “The Last Song” – funny title because it actually is not the last song of the album. Finally we reach the end with track thirteen: “One More Round” – the second verse melodies really stick with me and when the drums kicked in I got excited. Overall I really love the songwriting and choices of instrumentation on the album. Eliza is extremely talented and I’m happy to have been able to review this album.
Eliza Noxon crafts songs that are direct, honest and extremely human. She blends traditional folk with indie-rock, her music explores the tender chaos of loss, identity and the aching strangeness of growing up. This album is an intimate portrait of fractured identity, enduring love, and the long shadow of grief.
Eliza debuted at twelve years old with her first single, “Hummingbird,” which appeared on Netflix’s Orange is the New Black. I actually listened to this song when I was in high school and would sing it for different events so being able to hear her growth has really been a lovely treat.
Good Monsters marks a turning point for Eliza. It began as an attempt to make sense of early adulthood, leaving home, graduating high school and stepping into the unknown. But after the death of her brother in 2019, the album became something else entirely: a lifeline. “Writing these songs saved my life,” she says. While threaded with memories of her brother, the album tells a story of survival, how she’s reassembled her sense of self in the years since.
Eliza isn’t just a star when it comes to music but outside of her music career she holds degrees in Education and Interdisciplinary Artistic Studies from Brown University. Since graduating she’s worked as a puppeteer’s assistant in New York, taught kids to milk cows on a farm in Vermont, and spent a year aboard a schooner in the Caribbean, teaching sailing and sea shanties to underprivileged youth. She is clearly the coolest person in her friend group!
Listen to the pre-released tracks of Eliza‘s EP here!
The Indy Review 