Halsey – ‘The Great Impersonator’ review: a brutal but brilliant reckoning with chronic illness

25 October, 2024

Halsey

Halsey has always been an artist in flux, both in and out of the spotlight. But in the wake of her last album, 2021’s ‘If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power’, the stability she’d built began to unravel. As the end of her twenties approached, she was dropped from her deal with Capitol, gave birth to her first child, broke up with his father, and was diagnosed with both lupus and leukaemia.

‘The Great Impersonator’, Halsey’s fifth studio album and first for Columbia, comes from a place they describe as “the space between life and death”. On the surface, it’s a tribute to the artists who made them. But on the other hand, it’s a brutal reckoning with chronic illnesses and postpartum depression, written when they weren’t certain if they’d make it to the other side.

These are the wordiest songs Halsey’s ever written – many of them seemingly contradicting each other. On the Joni Mitchell-inspired ‘The End’, she sings of finally finding unconditional love while at her weakest. Yet on ‘Life of the Spider (Draft)’, a devastating one-take on piano and vocals, she dissects the feeling of her illness reducing her to nothing – barely a spider in a bathroom.

In many of the lyrics, there almost seems no chance for redemption. It’s through the music, much of it inspired by artists they were listening to during chemotherapy, that she finds empathy for herself. ‘Panic Attack’ compares falling in love to needing an antihistamine, but it’s hard to feel anxious over an arrangement with the warmth of Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Dreams’.

‘Letter to God (1983)’ could almost pass as a parody of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘I’m On Fire’, but the lyrics instead find her remembering old friends who lived fast and died young, praying that her illness won’t take her too. Though most of the songs are less obvious with their references, Halsey’s songwriting and production – alongside collaborators like Alex G and Stuart Price – has such love and attention to detail that the album never feels like pastiche.

Across the album’s 18 tracks, one consistent theme emerges – how can Halsey bring a child into this world when they feel so unresolved? On the title track, they offer no answer, just further contradictions: “Every single truth I sing / Once started as a lie / I promise that I’m fine / But then I redesign / And put myself together like some little Frankenstein”.

Looking back through her recent catalogue, ‘Manic’ is more stylistically diverse, ‘If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power’ more musically ambitious, but ‘The Great Impersonator’ is Halsey’s most honest album – that is if you choose to believe her.