I wasn’t ready for this one. As Shannon Darcy’s “Demons Do” played through my speakers, it opened a wound I’ve been patching up with eyeliner and attitude for years. This track is honest. And sometimes that’s way scarier than loud.
From the very first line, she drags us into the spiral: “I’ve been stuck up here a long time / With nothing but the thought of you screwing with my mind.” Been there. Stuck in your own head, knowing it’s toxic but too numb to climb out. The guitars hit like static in your chest, and her voice is that kind of raw that doesn’t care if you flinch. She’s not being brave for us—she’s just surviving, out loud.
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Shannon’s from Essex, and she’s pushing something different into the alt scene—something that doesn’t pretend healing is linear or pretty. Her love for gritty rock and dark pop bleeds into this track, but what really grabbed me was how fucking true it felt. She said “this song is just one piece of the story told across each track on my new EP,” and I believe her. You can hear the rest of the storm forming behind it.
“Love me like my demons do / Hold me closely just like my demons do.” That lyric wrecked me. Because when you’ve been living with trauma long enough, the only kind of love that feels real is the kind that hurts. Not because you’re broken, but because your brain was wired in survival mode for too long. I get it. She’s not asking for fairytale romance—she’s asking to be consumed in a way that matches the violence inside her own mind.
It gets even darker: “Hate me like my demons do / Console me, taunt me, just like my demons do.” There’s no metaphor here. This is what it looks like when mental illness starts to feel like your oldest lover. You start comparing every person to the voice that’s kept you company on the worst nights. Shannon’s not glamorizing it—she’s confessing it. Quietly. Loudly. Every way at once.
“I’m nothing more than a lost cause / Yet I’m still obsessed with all your flaws.” That one’s personal. That’s every time I let someone stay who mirrored back every fucked-up thing I believed about myself. That’s what unprocessed trauma does—it doesn’t just haunt you. It teaches you how to fall in love with ghosts.
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With teeth-driving drums, unapologetic guitar lines, and zero fluff, the production punches hard and knocks the breath out of you. But it’s the emotion underneath that makes it hit. Shannon’s voice is strong and defiant. She’s bleeding in real time and daring us to look.
And I’m looking. I’m all in. Because sometimes the most empowering thing a woman can do is admit she’s still a little fucked up, still clawing her way out, still here.
And girls like us need that.
