Lyric Of The Week 71: Forever

"Two burning hearts are dared to break."

Lewis Capaldi - Forever, from the album Divinely Uninspired To A Hellish Extent

Album: Lewis Capaldi - Broken By Desire To Be Heavenly Sent [2023]

I loved Divinely Uninspired To A Hellish Extent, it is one of my top few pop albums of all time, so I think you can guess my excitement for a new Lewis Capaldi album after four years of waiting. I'll be honest, the singles were not promising, especially with Pointless, but after the album came out I've had the time to sit with it and listen to it a few dozen times, and I'm very happy to say that it was far from disappointing.

As the four singles released one by one, I got more worried about the general production value of the record. There was a noticeable tiktok-ification of the song's writing and structure, and the production was vastly different from his debut. Pointless was completely unlikeable, and the rest were bearable at best, but it felt like there was an element of authenticity missing from the few tracks. Between a seemingly overproduced vocal mix and a weird choice of instrumentation that felt too generic pop, it felt like the unique sound that blew him up in the first place was missing from this album cycle.

My hopes were slightly restored when the full album released. I found some of the songs quite enjoyable to listen to, and a majority of the record is listenable. I definitely have gripes, but it is an overall good-leaning mixed bag. His strongest suit still remains with choruses, and there are a handful of songs that are hard-carried solely by the chorus, while the verses on just about all the songs fail to impress me. There's a certain lack of confessionality and vulnerability in the writing that Divinely Uninspired To A Hellish Extent had, which I felt was a big part of the appeal, which leaves this record a bit bare and uninviting. It also suffers from sounding very generic and familiar to the trend of tiktok songs, being written with little to no thought on the bigger picture and instead going off of little moments that are engineered for virality and easy listening. There's a subtle lack of genuine emotiveness, and the vocals sound a bit hollow. The dynamics also seem a bit off, and the lack of any cut that feels Headspace-esque or even Fade-like is a bit sad. It lacked a lot of the essence that made Divinely Uninspired To A Hellish Extent such a good listening experience, one that you can sink into while feeling all the emotions, but Broken By Desire To Be Heavenly Sent just feels so, pop.

There are things to like about the record, despite all my gripes. The venture into stronger pop instrumentals has a few strong hits, like the slightly synth-pop upbeat Heavenly Kind Of State Of Mind, which is one of the most cohesive tracks on the record, or the keyboard heavy Leave Me Slowly which even features a guitar solo that left me pleasantly surprised. His choruses have gotten stronger, with the likes of Burning, How This Ends and Haven't You Ever Been In Love Before? being some of the strongest choruses around. I think it was commendable that he wanted to expand his sonic territory and experiment a bit, even if the results were not the most impressive.

Do I think it's a sophomore slump? No, not at all. Does it beat Divinely Uninspired To A Hellish Extent? Absolutely not. Despite it's slight messiness and different sound from its predecessor, I think it was a formidable output of music from Lewis Capaldi. I don't see myself loving it as much as I did the first record, but it has done nothing to dull my love for his music. I've chosen to view this record as a bit of a transitional, experimental or intermission-like record, one that has as much of talent as before, but simply run through a different machine and came out different. Whether this was exactly what he wanted to have made for his second record, I won't know, but like I mentioned before, it wasn't disappointing so I have not much to hate about it.

Rating: 8/10

Tracklist:

1. Forget Me

2. Wish You The Best

3. Pointless

4. Heavenly Kind Of State Of Mind

5. Haven't You Ever Been In Love Before?

6. Love The Hell Out Of You

7. Burning

8. Any Kind Of Life

9. The Pretender

10. Leave Me Slowly

11. How This Ends

12. How I'm Feeling Now

Album: Lewis Capaldi - Divinely Uninspired To A Hellish Extent [2019]

Scottish musician Lewis Capaldi has been one of the most interesting artists to pop up in recent years, no doubt due to the massive explosion of success that he achieved in a such a short amount of time, and the unprecedented reach of his debut album. The best part is, every drop of it is well deserved and justified by great songwriting and undeniable talent and skill.

I remember watching a cover of Bruises at a small school concert, and to the credit of the singer it was well performed, but I found the song nice and went back home to find the original version of it, only to be absolutely astounded by the voice of this singer. It's unmistakable that part of what makes his songs so good is his utterly angelic vocals. Whether it's the emotion-laden grit, the Scottish tinge or the elegant control he has, his voice has been one of the more iconic and unique ones this decade.

I didn't catch the hype of Someone You Loved or Before You Go, but I eventually got around to listening to the album as a whole, the extended edition to be specific. I was (and still am) in awe of how impressive this debut album was, with a standard of quality rarely seen in first releases. His songs aren't production heavy, there's barely any fancy effects or sounds, it's just heartfelt singing over simple piano and guitar melodies, which only goes to show how talented he is at singing and songwriting, where even the most raw and unfiltered tracks sound amazing.

Every song, from the major smash hits to the deep cuts, are extremely polished and well made. Even for a pop song, which never needs as much complexity as genres like metal and EDM, you can tell there's a lot of thought put into his songs. Although it is true that his songs don't vary too much in style and musicality, they're all easy to listen to, emotionally moving and memorable. Headspace gets a shoutout for being one of favourites of the album, I absolutely adore how great of a song it is for having the barebones essentials, being one of the calmest songs on the album and being one of the least streamed songs (it deserves more but at the same time I enjoy the idea of it being a deep cut).

A good majority of the world can agree with me that this is a terrific album, and the critical reception for this album has been insane. His record-breaking career is barely a few years old, and this album is the testament to what can become of great potential and even greater talent. I love to spin this record when I need something soft or when my heart wants to feel, there's nothing quite like singing along to Lewis Capaldi when you're emotionally vulnerable, and there's definitely nothing quite like Divinely Uninspired To A Hellish Extent.

Rating: 9/10

Tracklist:

1. Grace

2. Bruises

3. Hold Me While You Wait

4. Someone You Loved

5. Maybe

6. Forever

7. One

8. Don't Get Me Wrong

9. Hollywood

10. Lost On You

11. Fade

12. Headspace

Extended Edition:

13. Before You Go

14. Leaving My Love Behind

15. Let It Roll

(Extended Edition Album Cover)