Album review: Holly Humberstone crafts a 'Cruel World'

Since releasing her debut single ‘Deep End’ in 2020 during the COVID-19 lockdown, Holly Humberstone has come a long way. She was awarded second place in the BBC Sound of 2021 shortlist, and won the prestigious BRITs Rising Star award in 2022. From there, she supported artists as popular as Lewis Capaldi, Sam Fender, and Olivia Rodrigo, before opening for Taylor Swift on select Eras Tour shows in 2024. After some time away, she’s back with Cruel World, a record that manages to strike a balance between optimism and brutal devastation.

Cruel World begins with ‘So It Starts’, an instrumental introduction that eases the listener into the album. It comes with a soft plucking of guitar which leads seamlessly into ‘Make It All Better’, a song which sees Humberstone trade the tales of fraught relationships that established her as an artist, for unconditional devotion. ‘Make It All Better’ sounds like nothing Humberstone has made before, combining twinkling sounds with glitchy percussion. As the song comes to a close, her voice begins to glitch too, and to earlier fans of her work, this level of experimentalism might not be expected from the singer-songwriter.

While ‘Make It All Better' declares “I think I need you like the air”, constructing a tender, joyful world in which everyone else is “just extras in our scene”, ‘To Love Somebody’ finds optimism at the end of a relationship. Backed by an effortlessly catchy, The 1975-esque instrumental that has already situated itself as one of the best in her discography, Humberstone relates the time-old outlook that it is better to have loved and lost, than to never have loved at all. The song’s tightly constructed rhyme scheme and notable danceability make it linger in the mind long after it has faded, cementing it as one of the year’s best pop songs thus far.

As the album progresses, Humberstone presents a variety of perspectives on romantic relationships, and the title track ‘Cruel World’ is another example of this. Opening with a verse including the line “I need to hear you need your baby back”, she conveys desperation, but even this seems optimistic: Humberstone questions “how am I supposed to breathe without you, baby?”, but the possibility of return remains. Following title track with lead single, ‘Die Happy’ creates a world that is, well, “neo-goth and grandiose”, but not in the deprecating way the phrase is used as the song begins.

Inspired by works of classic dark fiction including Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber, ‘Die Happy’ fashions a soundscape that is entirely immersive and melodramatic, but also subtle. As the song reaches its third chorus, listeners might expect an explosion of instrumentation, but Humberstone instead lets it fade out, refusing to take things too far. This atmospheric track is a testament to her ability to meticulously craft a realm around a record, something also demonstrated by her choice of Silken Weinberg, known for his contributions to the world of Ethel Cain, as director for the single’s visualiser.

‘White Noise’ features what may well be Humberstone’s best vocal performance yet, offering a lost-in-the-crowd, crying-in-the-club experience and urging “play a sad song DJ, I just want to sway tonight”. Complete with synths that are pulsating but subdued, the song recreates the feeling of being alone in a room full of people, calling back to Robyn’s smash-hit ‘Dancing On My Own’. “I’ll let my tears hit the floor, time to get real, girl, you’re not in his arms anymore”, Humberstone reminds herself, attempting to escape her melancholy and move on, but never fully succeeding.

The Can You Afford To Lose Me? compilation had ‘Scarlett’, and Humberstone’s debut album Paint My Bedroom Black had ‘Lauren’. The former discusses a friend’s break-up, while the latter sees her apologise to another friend and make amends for being distant and unavailable while touring.

On Cruel World, she introduces another female name into her discography in the form of ‘Lucy’: Humberstone is yet to confirm whether ‘Lucy’ is a real person in her life, but the song does allow her to examine how “being a young woman in the modern world is strange”. Its lyrics are enough to stop listeners in their tracks, suggesting that “behind every rain cloud, there is a promise that flowers will grow” and reflecting the album’s overarching theme of optimism in the face of adversity.

‘Red Chevy’ aptly begins with the revving of an engine, and it’s instantly clear that the sombre moment brought by ‘Lucy’ has passed, at least for now. When Humberstone near-screams “kiss me like you fucking mean it”, it seems to be a primal need. The song comes to a close with a burst of saxophone and a voice note framed from a male love interest, continuing the theme of a romantic escapade by stating “I’m on my way, I’ll pick you up in an hour”.

‘Drunk Dialling’ unfortunately comes as a low point in the album, seeing Humberstone blowing “kisses to creepy men” and shaking a “non-existent ass to a shitty song”, all in the name of being “not unhinged, just having fun” to avoid missing an ex-lover. The intention of the lyrics here is to empower, but they come across as cringe-inducing instead. Most of the songs on Cruel World are distinctly Humberstone’s, expressing a strong sense of artistic identity and individual perspective, but ‘Drunk Dialling’ could have been written by anyone.

Despite this small blip, ‘Peachy’ comes as a return to form. Humberstone urges “don’t put your faith in me”, backed by a devastating set of minor piano chords that command attention and bring a tear to the eye. ‘Blue Dream’ picks up the pace a little, but retains a sense of longing as Humberstone recognises “I kinda think we could make it”, but only if her partner drops “the cool guy act”. Cruel World closes on a semi-autobiographical note with ‘Beauty Pageant’, a song that tells the tale of a girl who “would die for the applause”. Humberstone calls back to a theme prevalent throughout her debut album, namely the struggles of fame, performance and musicianship, singing “you’re not in the midlands anymore, I click my heels and wish for home” before a flourish of strings and layered vocals brings an end to the album.

Throughout the course of Cruel World, Humberstone displays devotion, lays bare her longings, wallows in melancholy at the end of a relationship and considers the difficulties of human life more generally. However, even the saddest songs here continually give way to a level of optimism: for example, ‘Beauty Pageant’ insists “don’t forget to have a ball”. This is an album characterised by hope and defiance, with Humberstone finding positivity in the worst of situations. The world may be cruel, but this singer-songwriter has everything she needs to face up to it.