Review Summary: "who's this Capaldi fella?"
Lewis Capaldi (as most of you must know) is a singer-songwriter from Scotland. His debut album was released earlier this year and is really depressing. The album portrays Capaldi writing of a past (or current) relationship. Now, I quite like almost every song on this album, but I completely understand why people don't. The mix is a bit of a mess, with Capaldi being so much louder than the instrumentation and his pronunciation is off. However, I really do think the songwriting and melodies are fantastically depressing, and I for one really like his vocals.
As I said, I like this album, it has only a couple of songs I don't like ("someone you loved and "one") and a handful of songs I love ("Hollywood", "Hold Me While You Wait" and "Grace"). Every other song is pretty good, but this is very much an album for a certain mood. It's a sad album but has certain moments that are almost uplifting, prime examples being "grace" and the best song on the album. "Hollywood" is the best track on the album. Period. It has the best lyrical content on the album and is the most evenly mixed, and Capaldi's vocal delivery is great. Other good tracks include "bruises", "forever" and "maybe" which may be more depressing but are still some really well performed and written songs.
My biggest gripe with this album is its biggest single "someone you loved" and the songwriting being a bit samey. This song sounds like someone yelling aggressive notes of love or pain at you. I'm not a fan of the mixing, with the keys being too quiet and the vocals being way too upfront for this kind of song. It should be more melancholic rather than pure depression like the rest of the album is. For the most part, the songwriting works cause Capaldi can sell pain, but it is a bit boring if you focus on the lyrics. I hope he makes a happier batch of songs for his second album.
Overall, I like this album. It's so much better than people give it credit for but isn't some masterpiece that needs celebration. It's nice for what it is but doesn't deserve to be a critical darling. I think Capaldi's next album will be much better and that his songwriting range will broaden. If you've heard this, listen to it again when you're in a worse mood. You'll like it a lot more.
