ALBUM REVIEW: Lizzy McAlpine – ‘five seconds flat’
Review by: Hollie Duffy
With an amass of music being released, this album was THE one I was most looking forward to. The third album (her 1st, Indigo, has since been deleted from streaming platforms, but is currently available on SoundCloud) from 22 year old singer-songwriter Lizzy McAlpine is one for the books. After her album ‘Give Me A Minute’ being released in 2020 and an EP ‘When The World Stopped Moving: The Live EP’ in 2021, fans have been eager for the constantly teased project.
The 14 song album, including 4 collaborations, was led in 2021 by the lead single ‘doomsday’ followed by ‘erase me’ ft Jacob Collier, ‘all my ghosts’, ‘reckless driving’ ft Ben Kessler (Lizzy’s 2nd collaboration with Kessler) and ‘hate to be lame’ ft Finneas, every single introduced Lizzy to her audience through a plethora of different sounds, from electronic to atmospheric ballads, this album was shaping up to be groundbreaking. The project has been accompanied by a short film written by Lizzy and directed by Gus Black, the visuals add a whole new depth to the album that a few music videos are incapable of, and it was something I didn’t know I needed.
The first new song we experience is track 2 ‘an ego thing’. Lizzy took on a different and more suspenseful sound coinciding with a more spoken tone in which reminds me slightly of musical theatre (which can easily pay homage to her high school theatre days.) Whilst this isn’t something I am used to or particularly gravitate towards, I’ve found myself hitting the repeat button on multiple occasions just to experience the intensity over and over.
Lizzy walks us through her heartbreak using the most intricate production and imagery, whilst this album feels extremely professionally produced, the acoustic aspect of Lizzy’s previous work and social media posts is still there. Every song she releases feels directly from her heart.
With the most beautiful track 6, ‘weird’ ft Laura Elliot, we experience Lizzy’s raw, atmospheric voice accompanied by audios of birthdays, laughing and shouting. This song is almost asking to be played through headphones at the highest of volumes and whilst this song introduced me to Elliot, her voice accompanies Lizzy’s in the smoothest most natural way, and I will be sure to keep up with her from now on.
Track 10 ‘firearm’ is THE song which turned this album from a 4 to a 5/5 for me. I went into it expecting the slow, acoustic vibe to continue throughout the entire 3 minutes, just like many of Lizzy’s previous songs, however with a Billie Eilish ‘Happier Than Ever’ style switch, Lizzy threw us into a more electronic rock bridge bringing us to an acoustic close. We once again are reminded of the extensive range of Lizzy and her sound.
Further down the album we have the blessing of experiencing Lizzy and Finneas. The intertwining of Lizzy and Finneas’ voices on track 11, feels like two stars colliding, and that’s exactly what this is, two of the most promising musical acts of right now, collaborating to create a goosebump inducing 2 minutes and 30 seconds of pure emotional musical genius. This is one collaboration that I hope comes back together for more.
To put this album into a genre box would be blasphemous, Lizzy does an amazing job at constantly changing her sound whilst her recognisable staple sound is consistent and shines through. To compare Lizzy’s voice to whiskey would be an understatement, with one of the smoothest, most emotional voices I’ve heard, 2022 is the year of Lizzy McAlpine and it will be a blessing to us all.
