Album Review: Lewis Capaldi – Broken By Desire To Be Heavenly Sent
2 min read
2019 was the year of Lewis Capaldi. His meteoric rise to fame came even his debut album, cruising on both the release of his number one single Someone You Loved, and his pure Scottish charm. The subsequent four years have been filled with trials and tribulations, for not just Capaldi of course, but quite a lot of this torment has made it thematically one way or another into his followup, Broken By Desire To Be Heavenly Sent.
The three-fold punch of singles Forget Me, Wish You The Best, and Pointless kick off the album, each one showcasing different sides of Capaldi’s strengths. The first shows that he is capable of writing a more upbeat ballad, the second that he can still do what he is best known for to an exceptional quality. Lyrically, Pointless has a particular resonance, Capaldi stating that it’s about his grandmother. It would be a poignant track, even without this added familial connection. Heavenly Kind Of State Of Mind brings the tempo back up, fitting perfectly with Capaldi’s lyrics about being saved by someone emotionally.
Love The Hell Out Of You is a gorgeous swung ballad, complete with Capaldi’s trademark gravelly voice and soft piano. The backing vocals on The Pretender add an extra layer of airiness to the chorus, while Capaldi takes a calmer tone in the verses. Leave Me Slowly takes on an 80s aesthetic, complete with a bell-like synth and drum machine pattern, while How This Ends bring on acoustic guitars, ditching the piano for a string section. Final track How I’m Feeling Now is one last personal stinger, Capaldi singing about his mental state at the time of writing the song. It perfectly encapsulates the themes of the album, but you can’t help feeling as though you should be trying to help Capaldi, rather than just listen to his album.
Broken By Desire… is part two of his debut, in the sense that the only progression musically is that some of the songs are more upbeat. Lyrically, however, Capaldi has exceeded himself, crafting heart-wrenching breakup songs, hopeful love songs, and thoughtful dissections of his own psyche. It’s a great showcase of songs, covering a range of emotions that people in their twenties through, and in that sense, he nailed it.
Writer and Musician, Ryan Bulbeck has been published with a number of online publications, and has worked with a myriad of great artists, both as a performer, and as a producer. His most recent band The 295 are still active, playing shows around the UK.
