Album Review: Holly Humberstone - 'Cruel World'
Holly Humberstone’s Cruel World is cemented in love, and all of the highs and lows that come with it.
Since emerging onto the pop scene in 2020, Humberstone has been nothing but open and vulnerable in her music, from her earlier EPs to her debut album, Paint My Bedroom Black. Now, she’s back with her latest album, Cruel World, one that’s drenched in romance, friendship, nostalgia, and the highs and lows of growing up. And it’s potentially her best work yet.
Cruel World, Humberstone’s second album, focuses heavily on themes of love, growing up and the turbulence that comes along with adulthood, all with a gothic twist. Each track feels familiar, carries the remnants of Humberstone’s previous works, while simultaneously sounding new, exciting, different. While she’s always been particularly gifted lyrically, it almost feels like Holly has come back swinging with Cruel World, the lyrics throughout the album truly packing a punch. With each project, every single release, Humberstone has continued to raise her own bar, and she continues to reach it and surpass it each time, too.
So It Starts, a beautiful orchestral string piece, opens up the album; it’s sudden and breathtaking, and if Spring had a sound, it would be this piece. Imagine flowers blooming and a warming breeze. It builds to a joyous crescendo before flowing smoothly into Make It All Better. Make It All Better is a track that captures that falling in love feeling perfectly. It’s a dreamy electronic pop track, a catchy synth accompanied by the same strings from the opening track. “I think I need you like the air / I think I need you like a teenager needs weed” - Humberstone brings to life that feeling of an all-consuming love, romanticising the mundane parts of a relationship that feel special when you’re with the right person. “I wanna be old and gross with you / matching tracksuits on the sofa”. The added distorted vocals towards the end give it a unique twist.
Make It All Better is followed by To Love Somebody, one of the three singles released before the album. Humberstone manages to make that dreaded feeling of heartbreak sound almost enjoyable. “To love somebody / to hurt somebody / to lose somebody / is to know you’re only human.” It sheds a light on the risk of falling in love, that more often than not it will come with some sort of heartache, but that’s the joys of being human, it’s a catch-22. Despite its somewhat heavy subject, the pop-heavy beat gives the track a light, infectious feel.
Title track Cruel World has clear influences from artists like The 1975, Billie Eilish and Gracie Abrams. Humberstone says of the track, “it comes from the euphoria and pain of long-distance. Your perception of the world around you can be completely distorted without that one person in it.” Her delicate vocals flow effortlessly through the dance track, with small additions like the cowbell adding to it. It’s very Carly-Rae Jepsen-esque.
While early songs depict a lot of the highs that come with falling in love, White Noise captures the rest. Think Robyn’s Dancing On My Own. It’s a “sorry I’m crying in the club” song. White Noise captures how one has to continue with their life after a break-up, heading to a club with your friends to escape your pain, surrounded by people but still feeling completely alone, “I gotta go through the stages of exorcising your ghost / sometimes the busiest places can make you feel so alone.” The perfect song with the perfect beat that will encourage you to dance that pain away, “play a sad song DJ / I just wanna sway tonight.” It’s laced with disco themes, a synth-heavy beat that will crawl under your skin quickly and have you itching to hit the dancefloor with your friends, heartbroken or not.
Lucy is one of the more stripped-back songs on an album. Holly’s soothing vocals accompanied by the gentle plucks of a guitar as she sings about girlhood, about the ups and downs of entering adulthood, moving away from home and venturing into the big bad world, “to be young and lost in London can weigh heavy on your brain / but blue is just a colour anyway”. Lucy in particular shines a light on Humberstone’s writing talents. The overwhelming feeling of adulthood is one most people can relate to, but Humberstone reminds us that the support from friends is what always carries you through: “Anywhere you go there is a chorus of angels following close…behind every rain cloud there is a promise of flowers that will grow.” Lucy is nostalgia wrapped in a song.
Red Chevy has an Americana pop twist to it, the immediate beat of the drum capturing your attention. It’s pure fun, a dancing in the rain or on a road trip, windows down, singing at the top of your lungs type of song, “so kiss me like you fucking mean it”. Undoubtedly, a song that will be incredible to witness live. It’s followed by another upbeat, almost jazzy tune, Drunk Dialling. The should I, shouldn’t I type of song. “And baby, I am drunk dialling you.” A song about having a crush and deciding whether or not you should make that risky move.
Every good album has the slow, sad ballad, so of course, Cruel World has that. Peachy, a piano ballad about the insecurities and doubts that come with a relationship, particularly when you’re younger. Humberstone has a knack for capturing the most relatable of scenarios and feelings in a gorgeous, poetic way, and Peachy really showcases that ”god knows I’m twenty-four / i’m still a baby / don’t put your faith in me”.
The album closes with Beauty Pageant. Humberstone says of the track, “This song is about grappling with the expectations that come with my job and more specifically being a woman. The pressure to be pretty and to perform is something that women of every age are dealing with - it is seen as currency.” This track in particular allows Humberstone to really show off her vocal abilities. It starts off as a gentle ballad before building, the introduction of the strings, the steady drumbeat, and the strum of guitars. It’s the perfect closing track for the album, particularly as it continued to build and build with each song only to reach this stunning, crashing crescendo.
Cruel World feels like Holly Humberstone’s best work yet; it’s got it all, infectious pop bangers and slow, sad ballads, all of it heightened by the addition of the synths and electronic twists. An album full of vulnerable, relatable emotions, rights of passage that most people have experienced, each song full of lyrics that make you nod and go “oh yeah, I’ve been there, I’ve felt that.”
Cruel World is an album made for warm summers and falling in love. And Humberstone makes the potential heartbreak feel like a risk worth taking.
Words by Angela English
