Hannah Breen

Every generation imagines itself to be living through uniquely turbulent times. Ours, however, bears the strange new burden of witnessing every catastrophe in real time, endlessly refreshed and delivered directly into our hands. We are overstimulated yet undernourished, hyperconnected yet profoundly lonely. The result is a horrible form of collective paralysis: an age in which information has never been more abundant, but meaning has never before felt more elusive.

Slow Fiction return with a nostalgic beauty, the influence of New York culture creating a yearning for something familiar. Here, the feeling of being watched is one too difficult to ignore, as lead drums atmospherically force the listener to see the world through the eyes of vocalist Julia Vassallo. A feeling of dissonance arises, Vassallo’s vocals enhancing this vulnerability like a diary burning to avoid exposure.

Few album rollouts this year have inspired quite as much conversation as you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love. Following months of thinkpieces on babydoll dresses and pastel heart-covered visuals, Olivia Rodrigo's third album appeared to be heading in a surprisingly different direction. After all the angst and GUTS of her first two albums, the aesthetic seemed oddly regressive, like a retreat into something sweeter, softer and strangely juvenile. The album itself tells a very different story.