Sweetness

Though Becca Harvey rose to alt-pop fame with her 2022 debut album, When I’m Alone, she felt as if she were working in the shadow of her collaborators, writing along to their melodies. For its follow-up, the Atlanta singer-songwriter rethought her creative approach, trusting her own lyrical and melodic instincts. The resulting songs are bittersweet and raw (despite the album’s deceptively sweet title), telling the story of a four-year relationship and its aftermath in bleary vignettes. On “I Just Do!”, she draws the blackout curtains and sleeps through a flight in the arms of a new crush; next thing you know, she’s looking at old photo-booth strips, wondering how it all went wrong. The 26-year-old’s lyrics are wide-open and bemused, countering her grief with a shrug or a wink; on “Windows”, she slips in a knowing reference to Fleetwood Mac’s iconic breakup banger: “You are my silver spring/No matter what you do/You will always hear me sing.”