Lucy Rose – ‘This Ain’t The Way You Go Out’ review: a roaring comeback

18 April, 2024

Lucy Rose

There’s a deliberate defiance in the title for Lucy Rose’s fifth album, ‘This Ain’t The Way You Go Out’. Speaking to NME earlier this year, she detailed the health issues she faced post-pregnancy that left her with eight broken vertebrae in her back: “Life was definitely upside down – I couldn’t walk or move, and breathing was excruciating”.

She credits a community of musicians – Paul Weller, US rapper Logic and producer Kwes – as encouraging her to create with freedom as she navigated her recovery. ‘This Ain’t The Way You Go Out’, then, is less about bold statements but recognising the quiet, personal victories on that journey. On ‘Over When it’s Over’ she sings that they’ll find “our way through” an embattled situation with both grit and grace. It’s particularly moving after ‘Could You Help Me’’s appeal for some kind of healing: “Now I’m learning / How terribly lonely illness is / On a hard day / Has there ever been another way?”

Now, she brings in a dancey shuffle to ‘Could You Help Me’ and ‘Life’s Too Short’ and a fearless veracity on ‘The Racket’; these are some of the most interesting and sonically varied songs of her entire career. This is, one hopes, the start of an intriguing new chapter.