There’s an aura of desolation that haunts “Oh Denny,” the new single from Nadia Marie. It’s a foreboding track and yet there lingers within it an almost sensual tension. Synths sigh and quietly seethe while stabbing piano chords pierce the chilling atmosphere in unnerving fashion. Even the track’s central rhythm, a meticulous cascade of narcotic thumps and clattering percussion, seems to teeter between desperate yearning and looming dread. Meanwhile, Marie’s expressive vocals float over the top, her harrowing reflections lifting the song through the murky darkness.

For those unfamiliar with the cycles of tragedy and grief that have defined much of Marie’s life, “Oh Denny” offers a small window into the artist’s mournful arc. The single is taken from her forthcoming album Seven, a conceptual LP that examines a painful yet formative seven-year stretch of Marie’s life. At the thematic heart of the record is what she calls the “cyclical regurgitation” between the seven deadly sins and the seven stages of grief. She describes the album as a dark, oftentimes bleak work, and you can hear that overriding sense of gloom coursing through “Oh Denny” and its stark portrayal of envy and insecurity.

“The second I started playing what became ‘Oh Denny,’ I knew it was about jealousy,” Nadia said in a statement. “Somebody I was dating at the time was jealous of a friendship I had with a photographer and firefighter from New York named Denny. Someone incredibly talented and sweet who I like to work with. Just a friend. When the music came, the lyrics flooded into my head immediately, fully formed, and I sang them. The song reflects the torture of being stuck in a shitty relationship, petty insecurities resurfacing again and again. It’s got a sexually frustrated feel—lustful, greedy, jealous. It’s about other people’s feelings that you can’t control. The line ‘I cannot sleep at night when you’re the one I love’—it’s really a reference to every relationship I’ve ever been in. They all kind of keep me up at night for different reasons.”

Listen below.

Seven is scheduled for release Apr. 29.

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