★★★★★

With its lilting melodies and intricately woven folk influences, Lizzy McAlpine’s ‘Angel’ is the singer’s most devoted and sonically expansive work yet. Its fourteen tracks are gut-wrenching amalgamations of love, heartbreak, loss, and discovery, carrying undertones of quiet optimism. 

The opening track, ‘The light in the painting’, bears a likeness to the soaring ‘The Elevator’ on McAlpine’s 2024 album, ‘Older’. It is a blooming illustration of newfound love and the hope it can create. Opening with a solo organ and gentle instrumentation, the song is a tender ballad that captures a heart overflowing with adoration, as in the lyrics “if somewhere there is a heaven / this is as close as I will get”. Much like the abstract album artwork, McAlpine paints a radiant portrait of affection and honesty that is raw, soft, and beautifully vulnerable. 

Other tracks are thematically similar, such as the vast ‘Over country’ with its homespun guitar and loving dedication to connections that stand the test of time, distance, and difference. ‘The moon’ is a representation of yearning for physical closeness, featuring a heart-bursting crescendo that conveys a visceral pull towards desire. McAlpine describes how, within herself, she may have complete freedom but is bound by the unyielding, inescapable force that exudes from her lover, leaving her “no freer than the moon”.

McAlpine is a master of observation, which becomes evident in ‘I have a friend’, where soft guitar strumming lies behind a lyrical vow of affection and fascination. The track is a tender promise between lovers, whose connection appears to be so deep that the rest of the world melts away. 

The album, however, doesn't shy away from how past relationships still affect the present, as demonstrated through tracks such as ‘Anybody’s fool’, written on the Fourth of July after McAlpine returned home from a party and was thinking of an ex. The song grapples with insecurity and the gut-wrenching ambivalence of loving someone who is bad for you, yet whose attention your soul still craves. McAlpine appears to develop clarity about the nature of a past relationship in the folk-inspired ‘A car wash and a new pair of pants’ that features Joni Mitchell-style production and lyricism, as the singer playfully reflects on an ex’s shallowness.

Fleet Foxes feature on ‘Soldier of the road’ with its twangy guitars and soft vocals, while ‘Peach’ follows suit as a thoughtful ballad centred on the realisation that harmony only transpires when two people can peacefully co-exist while also being content within themselves as individuals. Themes of reflection continue with ‘Two elevens’, which considers how memories of relationships can become romanticised and, consequently, distorted in lyrics such as “we had something / that’s all that matters”, leaving McAlpine with nothing but a bittersweet goodbye. 

A standout track is the distinctive seven-minute-and-twenty-three-second ‘Our strange ways’. It tells the story of two interweaving timelines that were destined to cross. McAlpine wrestles with themes of contingency and fate throughout, focusing on how destiny is shaped by choice rather than chance. Framed by a vast arrangement of ethereal, folk-inspired instrumentation and swirling orchestral strings, the track is nostalgic, purposeful, and indicative all at once.

McAlpine dedicates songs to both her lifelong friend and co-producer, Mason Stoops, in ‘Mason’s song’, and her late father in ‘The crowd’, arguably the album’s most lyrically dense and emotive track. The song explores living with regret, grief, and the attempt to grow in a space that is filled with unanswered questions. Lines such as “everything I do / I do so I can make you proud” and “I wish I told you more that I loved you” are painful expressions of her loss, achingly elevated by a solo piano. 

The album closes out with the title-track ‘Angel’, which is a culmination of all of McAlpine’s previous music and life experiences. She allows herself to revel in her newfound freedom and meditate on the journey of evolution and growth she endured to get there. The song brings the album full circle with its closing lines of “I have always been here waiting / just to be”, reminding the listener that true peace and contentment can only grow from within one’s own heart. 

Much like Phoebe Bridgers, McAlpine adopted a no-phone policy at her early release shows and that, in itself, is exactly what the album deserves: a tranquil, undistracted space to revel in the beautiful moments of connection that she has crafted throughout. Blending the cinematic arrangements of ‘five seconds flat’ with the heartbreak of ‘Older’, ‘Angel’ is a beautiful sigh of relief. It's an intricately crafted love letter that honours all those who have shaped McAlpine’s life, whether in the vividness of the present day or the quiet fading of a distant memory.