Ireland’s own Queen of Soul Pop, Baba, is set to release her highly anticipated debut album “Truth” this upcoming Friday, the 30th of May!
An autobiographical album co-written and produced by Enda Gallery, “Truth” explores the core and complex themes of female empowerment, love, loss and hope. Baba writes from the heart, drawing inspiration from her own difficult fertility journey and heartbreaking miscarriages, effectively conveying both the profound grief that only a mother can feel and the fierce, enduring sort of love that they have for their children over a 30 minute span. This is a somewhat short, sometimes sweet and sometimes deeply moving wave of emotion from start to finish, all with a cool, retro feel that is broken up by a number of private interludes.
Baba has said on the album: “This album is my story—my journey through the highs and lows of recent years. It is an honest reflection on grief, resilience, and self-discovery, born from my struggles with fertility, the heartbreak of baby loss, and the mental health challenges that followed. It is a story about facing the complexities of healing while embracing those glorious moments of love, joy, nostalgia, and hope. Always hope. There was room for some bangers in there too.”
To be fully honest, I loved every minute. The beats are both fresh and nostalgic in equal measure, catchy but only rarely ever too repetitive. Baba has a clear, unique voice that she pairs with perfect diction, and the album is an easy, breezy sort of listen that I was loath to see end. The interludes, a personal touch, are humanizing and endearing. It feels like the kind of music that belongs on a cassette tape, which I say as the highest order of compliment.
“Truth”, the title song, is vaguely reminiscent of Kate Bush’s debut single “Wuthering Heights” to me, but new and exciting. It’s an anthem in the truest sense of the word, and an extremely powerful way to start off the journey that the album itself is set to take you on. After listening the whole way through, I admired the choice to put “Truth” first in the tracklist; the structuring might seem off considering the lows that we still have to experience later, but I think the message here is abundantly clear. “To grieve, I had to let myself drown,” Baba sings, early on. Following it with a declaration that “it feels good to be alive” is the true mark that she has come through on the other side of the poignant grief that she has experienced. In the same way, the “Minnie’s Royalties Interlude” (the first of four) is a charming insight into the point of it all, for the singer. There’s a little joke made about the happy gurgling of her daughter, Minnie, crafting that beat of the song – jokes aside, it’s obvious and understandable that she would be such a huge source of inspiration for Baba, and I found it deeply touching that she has chosen to immortalise her beloved daughter, here.
I tend to really enjoy upbeat sad songs, and “Sad Party” is exactly that. Though I think of it as the worst offender for ‘repetitive’ in the tracklist, that does contribute to how wildly addictive it ultimately is. The excitement in the “Summer Songs Interlude” is contagious, and I completely understood the hype once we moved to “Spicy Summer”, an alluring duet between Baba and Enda Gallery. “Lost In Lisbon” continues the stripped back trend, and I love how wistful this one feels, with ebbs and flows that match up perfectly with the ocean theme. On reflection, I think it’s my favorite of the bunch.
“Apollo’s Heartbreak Interlude” and “Apollo” are introspectives, written exploring the grief that Baba felt surrounding the loss of her son during the second trimester of pregnancy in 2023. “I cannot see a way through for me,” she intones over a mournful piano, and I can’t blame her for imagining that this unimaginable grief is insurmountable. The emotions on display here are raw and wrought. She doesn’t shy away from her sorrow, but she also manages to stitch a great deal of hope into this narrative. “If I don’t feel then you’re not real, so how can you be free?” She asks, but in remembering him and immortalising him, also, he exists forever in the minds of everyone listening. Her son is so lucky to be loved so much, and to be thought of and remembered so fondly.
It feels right to move from “Apollo” to “Love Like This”, a song that is, of course, dedicated to Baba’s daughter Minnie and the light that she brought into her life. It’s a clearly 90s inspired born hit oozing with love and hope, and I think it’ll resonate for many people in many different ways. The final “Tashy Interlude” is a supportive outpouring of love, and “Running In Circles” is another intense anthem in which she comes full circle and happily declares, “take a look at me now!” Yet again, the structure is perfect. Stripping back at the very end to finish on the softer note of “All That’s Left to Say” is the exact right choice, and ending on an “I love you” is exactly what this was all about.
Baba infuses her love into every word she sings, and every single one of the interludes on this album are another way to hammer in just how much love there is in the world and around her, specifically. Considering how lonely she must have felt during the period of time expressed most plainly in “Apollo”, those interlude reminders and the simplicity of those three words at the end are a beautiful note to end on.
“Truth” earns a 9 out of 10 on my rating scale, and is well worth the time you’d spend on the journey.
Reviewer – Rachel Cooney
Album Cover – Jen Stephens