Voice of London

⭐️⭐️⭐️.5/⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Dean Lewis, the Australian singer known for his heart wrenching hits, has just released his second album, and he has lived up to his usual expectations. Prepare for him to hit a nerve (or several).

If his lead single from the album, How Do I Say Goodbye, felt like a knife to the chest, his new album The Hardest Love will twist it in further. Released three years after his debut album, A Place We Knew, he has kept his original sound and fine tuned it in a way you didn’t know he could.

Lewis has used his own experiences with love, loss and heartbreak to write the 10 tear jerking songs that fill this album. All the songs follow the same style of acoustic guitar or piano melodies, which are amplified by the yearning in his vocals. Particularly in the opening song, Small Disasters, setting the energy of the soundtrack from the beginning. 

Running at only 31 minutes, it still has an impact. Within this short amount of time, you will experience Lewis’s most raw and vulnerable emotions. While on his first album he focused more around romance, here there is a heavy theme of death, grief and his deepest anxieties.

The title track The Hardest Love is a song of loss and a celebration of life. Singing about a friend who he had lost to an illness, the lyrics tell the tale of him telling her how proud he is of her and that it is okay to let go: “I need you to close your eyes”.

With a folky feel to it, it tells a story which will connect with many listeners and even create a lump in their throat. 

Just before he closes the album, Lewis opens up about how he self sabotages his relationships and can’t let anyone get close to him in his song Into The Breeze. He admits how he struggles to see who he really is, asking: “why is it so hard to see what I can be?”

Dean Lewis uses his music to strip his soul bare for everyone to see. It is beautiful and something he does incredibly as an artist. While it has a similar feel to his debut, this album will connect with people worldwide, bringing both pain and comfort to many.

If you want to read more like this, read our posts here:

• Dean Lewis and his heartbreaking concert
• Taylor Swift’s ‘Midnights’ has arrived

Writing: Summer Rogers | Subbing: Shakira Bruce-Abubakar | Featured Image: Summer Rogers