Sophie May – ‘Worst Thoughts In The World’ EP review: pop with an outsider defiance

9 August, 2023

Sophie may

When 24-year-old Londoner Sophie May broke through TikTok’s algorithm in 2020, she made it clear that she wasn’t here to romanticise her life. Complimenting the candour of ‘Lover Boy’ and ‘Bad Man’, the raw, #MeToo-reminiscent ‘With The Band’ felt like a singular voice emerging, looking back upon the thrill of dating a rockstar with maturity and empathy for the teenager who tolerated far more than she should have.

READ MORE: Sophie May: “I woke up after a big night out to see Billie Eilish calling my song ‘beautiful’”

May’s second EP is a little more dulcet in tone, trading the intriguing country twang of her debut, 2022’s ‘You Do Not Have To Be Good’, for more straightforward acoustic folk. But that doesn’t mean she’s pulling any lyrical punches. This time around, her tracks give space to the intrusive thoughts that bother us at night, the obsessions that whir when we’re feeling down or vulnerable.

Confessions of looking up a partner’s new girlfriend online mingle with fantasies of extra-marital affairs, loved ones dying in freakish car accidents versus the visceral regret of babysitting an immature boyfriend for too long. It could feel mawkish were it not so intensely relatable: for anyone who lives with OCD or anxiety-ridden spirals, this EP will feel like a deep, comforting breath of recognition.

Featuring co-writes with Matt Maltese (‘Worst Thoughts In The World’), and Spector‘s Fred Macpherson (‘Killing You In My Sleep’), there’s an affection for ’00s indie-inspired sounds at play, curling around the edges of May’s arrangements. ‘Wish I Was A Single Girl Again’ channels the hazy summer melancholia of Laura Marling, while ‘Doppelganger’ pairs a narrative re-writing of Olivia Rodrigo’s ‘Deja Vu’ with a lamenting instrumental similar to Arctic Monkeys’ ‘Despair In The Departure Lounge’ – the perfect reference points for any self-respecting young millennial. As always, it’s May’s disarmingly blunt punchlines that give her music bite, splintering her softness by cutting right to the chase: “Sick in the head thinking of us when we’re in bed / You’re fucking me / When you pull my hair / It’s just like pulling hers I bet.”

This EP isn’t perhaps as diverse as May’s debut, but for an artist on a path of steely self-reflection, sometimes being bold enough to simply admit to what you’re truly thinking can feel revelatory enough.