BEFORE I FORGET

01How I came across it

IN A PERFECT WORLD came out before the rest of it, and I didn’t like it. That’s the honest starting point.

I heard it driving to work in Nelson, before we moved, and it didn’t land. I don’t think I gave it much of a chance after that.

02What I expected

Nothing much, because I’d already made my mind up off one track.

Which is the trouble with singles — you’re judging a song that was built to sit inside something else, and you’re judging it on its own. Then the rest of the album arrived, I played the whole thing through in one go, and it made sense.

03What it’s actually like

It’s emotional, but it doesn’t leave you flat. That’s the part I didn’t expect and the part I keep coming back to — some of these songs are genuinely heavy, and I still come out of them feeling good.

It’s a good vibe the whole way through, and it’s catchy. I sing along to most of it, which isn’t something I usually do with a record I’d call emotional. Normally it’s one or the other.

And there’s a reason it feels that unfiltered. He’s 22, and he doesn’t write anything down — no paper, no notes app. He freestyles straight onto the beat, layering takes until the hook and the melody are there, and a whole song can be finished in ten or fifteen minutes. Most people making music at this level are working with a writers’ room, or drafting a line at a time.

You can hear it. What sounds raw on this record is raw — it’s the first thing he thought, kept.

04What doesn’t work

Some of the tracks are too similar to each other. Not many, and not badly, but there’s a stretch where I couldn’t tell you which one I was on without checking.

That’s the half point off variation, and it’s the only real mark against it. When a record is this consistent in mood, the risk is that consistent starts to mean same — and once or twice it does.

05When it fits

Driving at night, first and foremost. That’s where it landed and that’s where it’s stayed.

But it’s also been on while I’ve been working, cooking, baking and writing, and that’s the more telling part. Most albums make you choose between listening to them and doing something else. This one doesn’t ask you to.

06Who it’s for

Anyone who wants something emotional that won’t drag them down. If you like singing along — properly, in the car, badly — it’s for you.

If you want every track to be a departure from the last, it isn’t. That’s not what it’s trying to do.

07Would I go back to it

I already have, and it’s gone up rather than down. I heard it first driving to work in Nelson before we moved, and I’ve listened to it more since we got to the Gold Coast than I did when it came out.

Albums usually fade. This one’s done the opposite.