An outstanding debut of powerful, intimate songs by the English singer-songwriter Holly Cosgrove from Paignton, Devon, who, with co-writer Jonas Persson, brings an aura of innovative, tender menace with echoes of Portishead, Billie Eilish and Fiona Apple. Her earlier single releases (aside from working with Paul Hartnoll of Orbital), led her in some media to be prematurely lauded as the next big thing, and touched on various iterations of pop, soul, and R&B. These are still present but now as a far more finished product, such as Guilt of The Act and the excellent title track, but a bigger range of styles and talent on show here. This is an artist very much reaching for her own style, one that above all seems confident in stillness and allowing space in her music. The outstanding Swarm, for example, is more a dark folk number, with powerful strummed acoustic chord changes and really shows off Cosgrove’s vocal range, reminiscent of Beth Gibbons, and like the title track, which is laced with a fierce irony, a melancholy treatise on the desperate state of the world, with climate change a recurrent theme. Other standouts include the intimate opener Fall Away, Womb, Unequal (with shades of Billie Eilish but so much more), Orbiting (particularly reminiscent of Portishead), the quietly intimate, disturbing spoken electronic/orchestral track The Reaper (“tectonic plates are moving”), Thirsty (with a dash of Alanis Morissette in the chorus), and closing track and another single, Onion Brain, in which she proclaims that “I try to reinvent myself”. She certainly has, and in many fascinating ways.
A strong candidate for debut album of 2022, and this could be the beginning of something big, even though of course, many of the songs contemplate the end of days. A rapidly maturing talent at the age of 27 and one to watch for great things. Out on Naim Records.
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