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Joy Crookes has been making waves in the music industry for years now - from her single ‘Feet Don’t Fail Me Now’ finding FIFA soundtrack fame, to her Mercury Prize nomination in 2022 for her debut album, ‘Skin’.
The South London singer-songwriter’s sound - an assured blend of jazz, rhythm, blues, and soul - has drawn comparisons to Amy Winehouse and Ella Fitzgerald, yet she has always written from a perspective distinctly her own.
Four years on from her debut, her sophomore album, ‘Juniper’ has arrived. The release is a natural evolution of ‘Skin’; adopting a similar sonic palette while simultaneously incorporating the maturity of nearly half a decade of growth. If ‘Skin’ was her introduction to the world, ‘Juniper’ is her affirmation, as she asserts her rightful place as a heavyweight in the landscape of British music.
Lyrically, Crookes dives deeper than ever. She takes on Eurocentric beauty standards in ‘Carmen’ (“I get envious of the vanilla type”) delivering layered social commentary in sugared tones. In ‘Mother’, her vocals momentarily soften as she explores generational trauma: “That’s just family / God knows what we carry from our history”. It’s songwriting that rewards careful listening, each track revealing new turns of phrase with every play.
The lyrical variation is matched by musical breadth. Each track carries its own instrumental character, creating a record that is cohesive yet wonderfully unpredictable. There’s a slow charm to tracks like ‘House With A Pool’ and ‘Forever’, acting in contrast to the more upbeat ‘First Last Dance’ - a reimagining of Kylie Minogue’s iconic ‘Can’t Get You Out Of My Head’, or popular single ‘Perfect Crime’, famed for its catchy hook.
The album is enriched with the aid of a select few collaborators. Rappers Vince Staples and Kano lend verses on ‘Pass the Salt’ and ‘Mathematics’ respectively, complementing her narrative with their effortlessly cool flows. Indie icon Sam Fender offers backing vocals on ‘Somebody To You’, underscoring the track’s mix of intimacy and quiet resolve (“I spent seven hours tangled up in your arms […] Oh, you gotta let go tonight”).
‘Juniper’ is a confident, more self-assured effort than its predecessor, proof that Crookes has not only met the promise of her debut but surpassed it. Balancing sharp-eyed lyricism with adventurous production, she crafts an album that feels timeless yet unmistakably of the moment. With this release, Joy Crookes doesn’t just cement her place in British music - she widens the space for soulful, genre-blurring storytelling, sounding entirely and unequivocally like herself.
Zahra Hanif
Image: Ewen Spencer