“Over and over, Older and older”
American singer and songwriter Lizzy McAlpine just released her third studio album, Older. The 24-year-old stitches up wounds and broken hearts with her airy indie-folk vocals, flawless harmonies, and guitar in hand. After making a pop appearance with the album five seconds flat, McAlpine has returned back to her organic acoustic roots with this new release. Rather than being a spectacle for popular music, Older is a project intended to help McAlpine find her voice as an artist and grow as an individual.
“I know that the right people will get the new album, but some people are gonna be disappointed because it doesn’t sound like five seconds flat,” said McAlpine in an interview with Teen Vogue. “This music is the most me that I’ve ever sounded, and I just want to feel understood.” McAlpine lost sight of herself within the production of her previous albums, to the point where she couldn’t recognize her own voice. She exists in an industry where labels and critics tell her what she should and shouldn’t do, but with Older, McAlpine doesn’t listen to them. She stays true to herself and is not trying to please anyone but herself. Her music has proven to heal the hearts of others, but most importantly, her own heart.
At “The End of The Movie Tour,” McAlpine debuted two songs from Older: “Broken Glass” and “I Guess.” Appearing in the set after “ceilings,” which had stadiums of people singing along, these new songs left jaws on the floor…mostly silent. McAlpine welcomed the audience into her creative space by leading a sing-along during the bridge of “I Guess,” a song that feels like romanticizing someone in your head. An imagination that could almost be real. In the lyrics she tells the story of a relationship in all its simplicities, “We dance together, you’re not that good” and “We eat our dinner, then we undress.” But she discovers that love is not so easy, and that “to love someone” means vulnerability. Like loving “someone you’ve never met.” Hearing its release with the rest of the world was a time machine right back to singing with strangers, when it was just our ears that got to hear it.
“Broken Glass” is a light show that starts off with McAlpine’s finger plucking and cascades into a series of explosions and drum crashes, where “every word is a land mine.” She is no longer naïve but is jaded, no longer alone but in pain. “Broken Glass” is about and evokes emotional violence. Similarly, “Drunk, Running” follows deep piano chords and symphonic strings into a vortex of drums. On the surface, McAlpine’s lyrics have her as a witness of alcoholism. Slowly this translates into the theme of bad decision-making and dishonesty within relationships, “Someone ought to hold you to your words / Say I love you and then drink it backward.”
Track 10, “You Forced Me To,” aligns with this theme but with an eerie ballroom tempo. It suddenly becomes overcast as McAlpine sings about guilt and crime. But what is the crime and who did it? During the chorus, her vocal spirals act like a cuckoo clock, ticking back and forth until someone cracks. The vocals stop at the bridge for a chilling piano solo that waltzes like a traveling circus. This song is a hauntingly beautiful tug-of-war between different desires and expectations, “I am not the same as when you met me / I have changed because you forced me to.”
The title track and pre-released single “Older” compares a child’s carousel ride to circles of life. It is a deep piano ballad that reflects the way life changes and stays cyclical. The chorus is a hard hitter that accepts a lost and lonely childhood full of wishes, “Wish I was stronger somehow, wish it was easy / Somewhere I lost all my senses, I wish I knew what the end is.” McAlpine watches and re-watches life as it passes by, hoping that the good will stay. “Where no one is dying, and no one is hurt / And I have been good to you, instead of making it worse.” Whether or not she can come to her senses, this song falls at the feet of life’s unpredictability.
“Come Down Soon” and “All Falls Down” both find an instrumental “lighter note” but remain introspective lyrically. “Come Down Soon” features a twangy folk guitar behind McAlpine’s delicate acoustics and a casual upbeat drum that keeps the song moving. No matter how hopeful she sounds, McAlpine does not consider herself deserving of a peaceful love or even a good that lasts, “Oh, it’ll come down soon, nothing this good ever lasts this long for me.” “All Falls Down” is a wistful collection of woodwind accents and string harmonies. The flutes and clarinets create an optimistic distraction before the song experiences a pop drop. Lyrically and instrumentally, “It all falls down on you at the same time.”
The album nears its end with a song dedicated to McAlpine’s father who passed away in 2020. It is track 13 called “March” in honor of his angel day March 13, “maybe I just see him in everything.” On other projects, songs for her father also appear as track 13, for example, “Headstones and Land Mines” from Give Me A Minute (2020), and “chemtrails” from five seconds flat (2022). “March” is re-living the trauma that you thought you handled but never fully will, “I didn’t know it’d be this hard, so far away and then it hits you.”
“Vortex” concludes Older at the intersection of self-blame and forgiveness. She could either choose the road from which she came or end the cycle and let go. Facing forwards McAlpine sings to the future, with belief that “Someday I’ll be kinder to myself / Someday you’ll come back, and I’ll say no.” She may not be there yet, but knows one day she will.
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