English singer-songwriter Holly Humberstone has announced her debut album, called Paint My Bedroom Black, will be released on October 13th. Two singles from the record, “Antichrist” and “Room Service,” are out now.
Humberstone made waves in 2020 with the critically acclaimed debut EP Falling Asleep At The Wheel, highlighted by its title track and “Livewire.” The project opens with the line, “Throw me in the deep end /I’m ready now to swim,” and it’s safe to say that she was right. Just three years into mainstream fame, she has opened up for Olivia Rodrigo and girlinred, has performed on late-night TV in the US and abroad, signed with Universal Music Group, and won the Brit Award for Rising Star at the 2021 BRITs.
“Room Service” and “Antichrist” are polar opposite tunes. “Antichrist” highlights Humberstone’s “extraversion,” both musically and thematically, while “Room Service,” a folky, almost off-the-dome style cut, focuses on the introspective. The tune is a love letter to those closest to her, whom she misses spending time with while out touring the world: “I am pining to be next to you/Just to get drunk, passing out in early afternoon from alcohol / From alcohol.”
The most striking lyric comes early on, when she says, “And someday we’ll look around to see we’ve lived another year / Someday I’ll fill the calendar with plans for you my dear. We’ll get room service.” “Someday” is the keyword, as that is a sad reality of the end of youth.
It is a simple, direct message that doesn’t try to hide in metaphors or complicated wordplay. It is just a girl working hard, bearing the responsibility she knew fame would bring upon her, but, at the same time, missing simpler days. Artistically though, she thrives in quiet spaces…thrives in the chance to allow herself to sit in her thoughts and process them through whatever she crafts with the guitar in her hand.
“There was this swelling feeling that I was growing apart from that world that I was missing so badly, and I just didn’t want to be forgotten,” she said in a statement. “All I wanted to do was to get a hotel room with my best friend, lock the world out and do stupid things like order room service. To me, the song is a simple love song to the people I care about most, and the seemingly basic experiences you share together that can so often be taken for granted.”
Stream “Antichrist” and “Room Service” :
