Holly Humberstone’s ‘Paint My Bedroom Black’: A weighty debut album
Humberstone ushers in a new era as she reflects on her own coming of age in her strikingly wistful debut album.
★★★★★
Photo: Constantine Spence
Over the course of two EPs and a full-length album, Holly Humberstone has time and time again captured her personal perspective on selfhood, loneliness and all-consuming relationships, via intricately layered synths, dynamic drum machines and emotive storytelling – often wading into a realm of honesty and deep introspection that is practically unheard of in pop music.
Armed with this intense relatability and unwavering sense of sonic self, it makes total sense that Humberstone has grown from an unknown singer at her parent’s piano to a tuned-in alternative pop star over just a couple years. Yet, capturing the chaotic thoughts of a generation to significant critical acclaim also brings with it new anxieties and feelings of disconnection – ones that, more often than not, were consuming for a singer-songwriter who accelerated to stardom in her early 20s.
Humberstone’s highly anticipated debut album Paint My Bedroom Black represents this complex coming of age. Doing so with such searing honesty and atmospheric beauty that it’s impossible not to see this album as one of her best works yet.
She pours her heart out across thirteen emotional and individual tracks, opening with the pulsing Paint My Bedroom Black and Into Your Room. Both of which set the album’s distinctive overcast atmosphere gorgeously, and serve as a flawless introduction to her new musical era.
As with all her music, Humberstone’s ability to tell a story stands out throughout this record. Her stark, candid and visual lyrical approach makes her songs so lucid and visceral that she is able to pull listeners into the dark and otherworldy space she has created, and ultimately express those deep feelings of self-loathing and romantic longing that although are commonplace, remain unspoken by the majority.
Alongside her distinctive wispy vocals, Humberstone also embraces several different soundscapes throughout the album, refusing to linger in one sonic space too long and appearing to take several sonic risks as a result. Not only does she embrace a restless rhythm alongside her gig-ready chorus on Cocoon, but she also amplifies her typically subdued sound with layered vocals on Baby Blues and a UKG-lite beat on Flatlining.
Flatlining is easily a standout track on the record. It’s light, pulsing production flourishes with the song’s rhythmic rise and fall, as changes in tempo bring movement and intrigue, and continue to show that Humberstone has a real instinct for emotive song-writing.
For this exact reason, Elvis Impersonators is easily another highlight as the singer-songwriter embraces haunting arrangements and repeated lyrics to depict the intensity of a panic attack with such stunning sensitivity: “I need you next to me, I’m spiralling.”
It takes a strange combination of introspection and extraversion to make songs like these, but its undeniably impressive that Humberstone is able to bare her soul so candidly on her debut album. Each track truly makes her stand out as a tuned-in, emotive storyteller amongst her pop peers, and so I’m sure that this is an album that will very quickly become a fan favourite.