Chloe Foy - Where Shall We Begin (2021) [Hi-Res]

The Gloucester-via-Manchester singer-songwriter Chloe Foy releases her debut album ‘Where Shall We Begin’ after a ten-year search for a voice truly her own. The result is a record showcasing introspective and nuanced work that could only come from a musician who let her songwriting mature over time. Touching on themes of life and loss, love and fear, Foy wrote the album while dealing with the loss of her father to depression.

In her opening track, Where Shall We Begin, Foy sings: “Death to those who wait/ Likely it’s too late”. It’s a song about the brevity of life, about the things that don’t always work out as planned – the people you love and lose, the moments that fly past when you forget to pay attention. Although weighed down with lyrical melancholy, the song darts through the air with finger-picked guitar notes. Towards the end, it lifts off with big, choral vocals and lush strings, only to bring the listener attention to life’s transience with the words “Hold on/ You’re gone”.

Deserve swerves the album into indie territory. Foy’s vocals tie the stylistic changes together, with her drawn-out vocals drifting through the lower register of her voice. She sings with daydreamy ease, and the slide guitar in the instrumental is spacious and light.

A further highlight is Evangeline, a more intimate track that starts with a guitar, an organ, and Foy’s sweet vocals. The track starts to build halfway through with strings, drums, and synths, and you try to hold on to the sweetness of the start, waiting for its return. Instead, the song breaks free and grows bigger. In the end, Evangeline returns to a simple guitar, and Foy’s gentle hum sounds like coming home, which was maybe the whole point.

Asylum starts with beautifully ominous strings reminiscent of Celtic string music. When the guitar comes in, it sounds surprisingly happy, and you can almost hear a mischievous smile in Foy’s voice, as she sings: “I was waiting for so long/ And when time stops I’ll be done”. For a brief moment, the song reminds me of the band Of Monsters and Men, but when the backing vocals come in, Foy’s ethereal vocals lift off again.

The second half of the album is remarkably darker. Bones starts with an unsettling chord progression, but it’s the plaintive clarinet and the description of a complicated love that grabs you. Foy sings: “Look at me falling, I’m falling/ In love with you/ There’s too much at stake here/ This love is for fools”.

Shining Star talks about a path not taken – Foy’s father was a talented artist and potter who decided to work an office job for stability and safety. His decision not to follow his dream ultimately inspired Foy to follow hers. In her press release, she said: “It gave me an early life lesson to follow a creative path if it presents itself and to ignore the pressures of society to conform to a certain life. Because it won’t necessarily make you happy.”

“Call us weak, we are stronger/ Courage seekers and we’re older/ Loving me under silver skies”, Foy sings in And It Goes. The track talks about how Foy’s mother dealt with the death of her husband and about the love with which she kept showering her daughter. The song seems suspended in the air with a guitar, an organ, and a Rhodes that never fully take off but linger, afraid of letting go. It’s the perfect arrangement for a sample of songwriting that offers a comforting and compassionate view of the ones who are left behind.

With the purity and the long-lost sound seemingly originating from the pastoral Albion, Chloe Foy’s debut is full of songs that enchant, comfort, and unsettle – but gently, like the wind. On the closing track, Square Face, the instruments drop away, and Foy starts singing a cappella: “Dedicate your life to me/ And delicately say/ You are the answer to my love/ You’ll live another day”. The ending is flawless – love and light at the end of a heartbreaking journey.