Singer/songwriter Willow is back with her seventh full length album, Empathogen. A much more stripped back affair compared to previous records. There’s not much electronic anything here. Willow herself has disengaged from the dark neo-soul synth world she’s helped to nurture for years now. Instead, she embraces elements of contemporary jazz and acoustic indie to deliver a project more streamlined than any of her last.

Willow has grown up in the spotlight for over a decade now. For better or worse, the daughter of the infamous Smiths has never had an issue with launching her creative efforts. Willow’s 2010 debut single “Whip My Hair” was a cultural phenomenon. This song led to an early interest in Willow, as she was predestined to carry the torch that her celeb parents lit. She followed up her internet sensation five years later with a full album, Ardipithecus, a beautiful LP with elements of funk, neo-soul and electro-pop. The breakout single off of it, “Wait a Minute!”, would become a TikTok favorite in 2019. It would also inspire Willow’s experimentation with “emo/punk soul” projects like The Anxiety and Lately I Feel Everything.

Willow would experiment in this field further with tracks like “Transparent Soul” and “Naive” being genuine ventures into pop-punk and grungegaze. As famous as her surname has always been, Willow dropped it from her artistic moniker around this time. A final confirmation that her talents came from her and her alone.

That may be, but Empathogen truly feels like the first time where Willow herself is confident in that statement. Her previous albums have been called “immature,” lacing in any kind of deep emotional depth. A fair but obvious criticism considering Willow just turned 23 at the end of last year. The strongest aspect of Empathogen is the maturity Willow exhibits, both in her voice and in her songwriting.

Still, I have to say it. Empathogen feels like Willow finally coming into her own. The natural progression of an artist growing and nurturing their talents. Her projects have never been stale or without raw expression, but those inspirations have been all over the place. Even a single album could take you on a million different paths, all of them exuberating a kind of adolescent wonder and curiosity about everything. With Empathogen, that cluttered feeling isn’t there. Everything, from the lyrics to the compositions, feels intentional and precisely planned out. Yet Willow manages this without sacrificing an ounce of passion or vocal creativity.

“Naive,” mentioned earlier, is my favorite song from Lately I Feel Everything because it’s Willow attempting to express in words that familiar feeling of being stuck in-between adolescence and adulthood. Lyrics layered in teenage angst describe her discontent with the state of the world (the George Floyd protests were happening). The chorus, short and sweet, sees Willow admitting her own naivety and asking someone to check her when she is. She’s acknowledging how little she knows about the world, and yet she can see the beauty and the ugliness in it. A duality that leaves her curious to explore more.

In a lot of ways, Empathogen is that exploration reaching a significant milestone.

The strength of Willow’s vocal performance comes not from the complexity of the lyrics. It stems from the beauty and soul layered in every word — and in the way these words are sung. Willow is clearly pulling from her own encounters with spirituality. Songs can feature hardly any lyrics at all, instead relying on soulful hums and scats and blissful piano runs (“home” featuring Jon Batiste). They can speak to the relatable experience of needing to smell the flowers and check in with others (“symptom of life” and “the fear is not real”).

Maybe it’s because we’re closer in age, but this feels like Willow’s most relatable album to me, while also being her most personal. The experiences she talks about are things people can connect to. That said, I’ve always been this close in age to Willow, and have always listened to her music. While I’ve felt enough of a connection to keep listening, Empathogen leaves me with stronger feelings.

Immature might sound like a harsh criticism to throw at her past work, but a younger Willow wouldn’t be able to make an album like this. She navigates familiar feelings of pain, insecurity and desire in songs like “pain for fun”. St. Vincent’s guest vocals take center stage as the pair harmonizes through love, heartbreak and some other third thing. Her spiritual experiences come in strong with tracks like “between I and she.” Willow describes a freeing connection between her and the “she” – who could be seen as Mother Nature, but also as a reflection of Willow’s self-acceptance.

Empathogen clocks in at just half an hour. While the material doesn’t feel unfinished, it feels like Willow is intentionally leaving us wanting more. While not the first time I’ve left one of her albums impressed, it is the first time I’ve left off with a desire for more like this.

The concepts and themes Willow employs are taken seriously, she’s shown that she isn’t messing around. As Willow is prone to switch things up nearly every project, I find myself wishing there was a more time to spend with Empathogen. “False self” could have used another minute, and “down” is painfully short for how soulful the message and Willow’s vocals sound on it.

These are pretty minor criticisms. Empathogen overall is an incredibly inspired, soulful album that shows that Willow is nowhere near done surprising us. Hopefully we don’t have to wait too long for a follow up, but I’m gonna trust the process.

Empathogen is available now.

Featured image courtesy of Three Six Zero and gamma.