Album Review: Holly Humberstone – Cruel World

Holly Humberstone is a name that regularly appears on my Girlfriend’s Spotify ‘new music’, so I am no stranger to her work – she’s quietly become one of the UK’s most compelling singing/writing pop artists, building her reputation on emotionally raw indie pop that feels both intimate and widescreen. Since emerging with early EPs and the breakthrough success of tracks like Falling Asleep at the Wheel, she’s carved out a space that seldom others occupy. Cruel World, released via Polydor, is her second studio album and feels like a natural next step for Holly – the title suggesting a sharper – perhaps, more world-weary – edge, shaped by touring and the growing pains of success. Time to find out whether my review is as cruel as Holly’s world, or whether Humberstone turns that pain into something quietly brilliant

So It Starts… acts as a musical amuse-bouche to Make It All Better – a plucky beginning to the track with great studio production as the song turns dnb beats toward the end, in what feels more electronic synth over the more analogue style I’m used to with Humberstone – and I’m into it! To Love Somebody is a more chart friendly, analogue track, with great lyrics and more like her earlier work, with title track Cruel World following in the same mould, with a Fleetwood Mac-cum-early pop Swift to it. Die Happy slows it down a touch, with bass guitar very much driving the track, and Holly using a more melancholy tone to her voice, with the tempo shift reversed in White Noise (though the vocal tone remains).

A true acoustic track (with a bit of studio assistance on the vocal layering later on), Lucy gives me the same warm feeling I got from José Gonzalez’s Heartbeats (though the tracks within themselves are very different). We return to the realm of pop (with darker/grown up tones) in Red Chevy… with the sax of John Waugh (prominent in The 1975’s work)… and this track does give some 1975 energy, whereas we get minor country music and post breakup lyrics in Drunk Dialling, while Peachy continues the form of phenomenal song writing, with a building synth throughout the track and writing that lyrically sweet, heart-breaking and vulnerable in unison. Penultimate track Blue Dream is another acoustic down tempo melancholy track with fantastic use of synth toward the end as the track progresses, and we round off proceedings with Beauty Pageant – for me the best on the album – a real belter of a indie pop track for adults.

I’ve yet to hear a bad Holly Humberstone track – sure, there are tracks that aren’t my speed or to my liking, but they’re never bad… and I can confidently say the same about every track on Cruel World. Sure, I’m unlikely to rock up to one of her gigs, but I’m not exactly her target market, and to be honest if I hear one of her tracks on my girlfriend’s release radar in and around the home I’m not going to demand it skipped on either.  I think this second album will be the one to catapult her star, not just into the ascendency, but into the stratosphere. If you’d say indie pop was your thing, she is a must, as it is I’m sorely tempted to add a couple of tracks to my favourites, even though this isn’t exactly my go to genre (I’ll probably not, but for me to consider it is a huge credit). Turns out, good things can come from a little pain now and again – this album is testament to it!!

Graeme