REVIEW: Halsey's BADLANDS

Rating: ★★★ | B

Halsey has perhaps the most buzz of any new pop artist this year. A viral self-starter, she was offered a deal by Astralwerks, an electronic imprint of Capitol Records, less than 48 hours after executives first heard her work. Now, with only one EP and no real "hit" yet to her name, she has almost 750k followers on Instagram and was this year's most-tweeted-about artist at South by Southwest. Every date on her spring 2015 solo tour sold out in less than 30 minutes, and over the summer, she drew crowds as an opening act for arguably one the most popular alternative-pop groups of the decade, platinum-selling Imagine Dragons. She has a tone to her voice that is reminiscent at times of Alanis Morisette and Amy Winehouse, two of her idols, and a lyricism that rivals both.

On the opening track of her debut album, Halsey appears to acknowledge some of this hype. "I'm heading straight for the castle, they want to make me their queen" she sings, noting that "now my neck is open wide, begging for a first around it." She's "sick" and "tired" of the attention already, as well as those who would try to control her. On "Hold Me Down," she sings about selling "her soul to a three-piece" who "told her she was holy," but refers to the demons inside herself as the real danger. These tracks suggest a girl struggling to adapt to a new environment, or rather, to keep from losing herself in the process.

As she recognizes, Halsey is a new kind of music star ("Viral mess, turned dreams into an empire / self-made success, now she rolls with Rockafellas"). Whether she will be a flash in the pan or a sustained success remains to be seen. The usual suspects will be back in the fall to capitalize on the holiday sales season. But there is a new generation rising. The familiar stars are growing out of touch, relics of a dying decade who may soon find it difficult to adapt to modern tastes, which don't fit into neat, label-packaged boxes ("Survival of the richest, the city's ours until the fall / they're Monaco and Hamptons bound / But we don't feel like outsiders at all . . . We are the new Americana / raised on Biggie and Nirvana").

With "Drive," the album veers toward more traditional topics, such as the difficulty of sharing feelings ("All we do is drive / all we do is think about the feelings that we hide") and of doomed relationships. The title of "Roman Holiday," arguably the album's best song, refers to an occasion on which enjoyment is derived from another's suffering or discomfort. Halsey's bitter-sweet track appears to be about the jointly-inflicted pain of loving someone when you know it will never work. The imagery here is especially poignant ("We'll be lacing the same shoes / that we've worn through / to the bottom of the line / and we know that we're headstrong / and our heart's gone / and the timing's never right"). It appears to be a theme Halsey understands well -- variations of it appear throughout the latter half of the album.

It is in this portion, however, that the music begins to lose some of its force. Halsey's lyrics are consistently strong throughout, but with tracks like Coming Down, Haunting, and Control, the production begins to feel a bit monotonous. The album is called BADLANDS, but Halsey is her least interesting while steeped in the depressed, thick production no doubt meant to mimic that desert environment. Much more riveting is the edgy production of tracks like "Ghost" and "Castle." In the end, Halsey's much-hyped EP probably showcased more versatility and promise than her full-length album delivered. What is offered, however, is nothing to sniff at. Whether or not she keeps the crown, Halsey needn't worry about vacating the castle anytime soon.

Suggested Singles: "New Americana," "Roman Holiday," "Ghost," "Colors."

Sounds Like: Lana del Rey, Lorde, Banks, Birdy, Alanis Morissette.