Alessia Cara Returns With “Love & Hyperbole,” Embracing Creative Freedom and a Vintage Vibe
A decade ago, Alessia Cara made her name with the fearlessness of her debut, Know-It-All, winning over pop fans far and wide with unguarded lyrics and a soulful singing swagger. Now at the age of 28 years old, the Canadian singer-songwriter has released her fourth LP, “Love & Hyperbole,” a personal album that finds her maturing creatively while remaining earnest in her narrative impulse. Delivered on Feb. 14, it’s a new chapter for Cara — one that demanded a withdrawal, a re-discovery of her muse and a brand of clarity.
After releasing three full-length albums in the span of five years, the last of which was 2021’s “In the Meantime”, Cara was stricken with writer’s block. Rather than compel Further Songs, she would embrace silence — a sabbatical in the hope of regaining her inspiration. When she looks back on that time, she remembers feeling unsure but eventually realizing that, at some point, “you just need time away from your own work until you miss it.”
In her downtime, Cara was listening to music from the 1960s and ’70s — featuring artists like Stevie Nicks, Joni Mitchell, Otis Redding and Janis Joplin. She was enchanted by the raw authenticity behind many classics of the era, and wondered how the absence of “extra pressures” produced music that felt uncut and irrepressible. Through this nostalgic lens, an opening appeared for her to channel that same candid fire in her songwriting, leading her path back to pen and paper.
Love & Hyperbole sounds different from Cara’s previous projects upon first listen, meaning it has an organic, live-band feel. Though her earlier work frequently relied on sleek pop production, her new album embraces warmth and instrumentals that bring to mind vintage recording sessions. Singles like “Dead Man” – the album’s lead single – and “(Isn’t It) Obvious,” with a mellow John Mayer guitar solo contribution, draw listeners into a more intimate sonic orb.
“It was a lot about stripping away a lot of the gloss and getting back to the feeling of a real band playing together,” Cara says. “I wanted it to sound free and urgent — like the music that drew me in growing up.”
Despite the sonic shift, “Love & Hyperbole” keeps the diary-like candor that has been a hallmark of Cara’s music since “Here,” the subversive party anthem that made her famous at 19. Over the course of the album’s 14 tracks, she grapples with her quarter-life musings — beginning with “Outside,” which describes a feeling of restlessness in Los Angeles, and concluding with the triumphant “Clearly,” which reflects on finding personal footing.
In the course of exploring vulnerability, Cara also leans into the unexpected joy of being in love — something she previously approached with trepidation. And she calls “Fire,” the album’s 12th track, her first true love song that isn’t clouded in fear or self-doubt, as she celebrates a movement away from guardedness and into bold, fearless passion.
Looking back over the decade since her emergence, Cara says that she still connects with the person who wrote “Here” as a teenager — even if she feels more fundamentally different in her perspective.
“There’s a part of me that will always connect with that girl calling her mom to escape a bad party,” she explains. “But I’ve also learned to be more extroverted and open than I was back then. It’s funny how you can remain the same at your core while still growing so much.”
Her new material embodies this duality: The DNA that propelled her to the top of the charts — personal lyrics, soulful vocals — is still there, but there’s also a noticeable softness and self-assuredness born from hard-won perspective. It’s a synthesis of both that fits in with the album’s vintage-yet-modern philosophy.
With four albums, a Grammy win and several collaborations to her name, Alessia Cara knows the highs and lows of a high-profile career. But she is still motivated by the same instinct that first compelled her, as a teenager, to post acoustic covers to YouTube: a love of music, plain and simple.
Indeed, in her album “ Love & Hyperbole”, fans will meet a singer in flux — ready to indulge in the cosiness of her influences, the genuinity of organic instrumentation and the emotional transparency that has always been the hallmark of her art. For Cara, this album is a portrait and an invitation: a reminder to listeners that if you wanna step back in, sometimes the only way to get there is to step out—refreshed, inspired, letting the music do the talking.
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