Label: Polydor Records
Released: 12th November 2021
Despite only dropping her debut single in 2020, each release Holly Humberstone unveils feels somehow overdue; keenly anticipated, desperately awaited, but always hitting the mark. ‘The Walls Are Way Too Thin’ EP is certainly no exception.
A delicate and soft voice brings to life some very special songwriting on tracks that explore a fear of leaving yourself behind, unfulfilled yearning, becoming physically and mentally lost, and experiencing general despair in a personal world that relentlessly reinvents itself. All six tracks throw you right into the unsettling discomfort of someone else’s shoes, just as Holly experiences herself in the cathartic embrace of self-worth in ‘Scarlett’.
The absorbing sonic journey traverses piano ballads and subdued acoustic tension, as well as igniting guitar and bass lines that still maintain a trademark vulnerability. It should come as no surprise that Matty Healy’s feature on ‘Thursday’ culminates in Holly’s most progressive stylistic choices yet too, with The 1975’s influence apparent in terms of thematics and experimentation.
Documenting a period of immense and intimate change, Holly uses this EP to paint a bleak canvas onto which your own doubts are unavoidably projected. Raw, broken and beautiful, desperation is woven into every guitar strum, every piano key, every damn quivering note. It takes a powerful talent to embody such anxieties in an accessible and liberating form, but Holly Humberstone ticks all the boxes.
