Juniper

Joy Crookes emerges from a long period of personal tumult that followed the release of her acclaimed debut album <i>Skin</i> (2021) with a different outlook on life and a striking record, <i>Juniper</i>, marking the beginning of a new chapter for the South London-born singer-songwriter. “I know we’ve got problems/That’s just family/And God knows what we carry from our history,” she sings on “Mother”, bold, punctuating percussion building up and breaking into twinkling piano riffs as she draws connecting lines through the generations. Relationships and their rippling effects are central to <i>Juniper</i>: “House with a Pool” narrates an abusive scenario in soulful, melancholic tones; “Paris” explores how bittersweet memories have altered her perception of the city of love; and sensual, slow-burn “Carmen” holds up a mirror to Crookes’ relationship with herself. Star turns come from Vince Staples, who contributes a poetic eight-bar evaluation of jealous rivals to “Pass the Salt”, and Kano, offering the other side of the equation to Crookes’ raw calculation of heartbreak on “Mathematics”. (Listeners may also recognise the resonant backing vocals on warm, retro groove “Somebody to You” as belonging to alt-rock singer-songwriter Sam Fender.) But, of course, it is Crookes herself that shines the brightest, cutting straight to the heart of her expressions and observations with scathing acerbity and exercising the versatility of her distinctive, malleable voice to evocative effect.