Cleo Handler looks to find herself in the wake of a breakup on new album compare & contrast
With the release of her new album compare & contrast, Cleo Handler explores themes like dating and ultimately spending time on your own in her own unique fashion and style, making for a truly immersive collection of tracks that are steeped in rawness, honesty, and the artist’s distinctive personality and charisma. Tmakes for a vulnerable album that hits and hard and feels as real as anything you’re likely to hear anytime soon, an intimate dive into figuring yourself out and coming to terms with the hand you’ve been dealt.
The album opens with its title track ‘compare & contrast’, getting its name from a conversation that she had during a breakup where she was told “as much as they liked me, their “therapist thought it was important they keep dating other people, in order to compare and contrast””. The track finds the artist’s trying to come to terms with this conversation, coming to terms with the fact that she only thinks about this person when things are bad and that when life is good it feels easier to move on. There is almost like a subdued nonchalance to the vocals here echoes this kind of sleepwalking, autopilot mode that breakups can put you in, and it makes the track as a whole hit so much harder as this stream of consciousness cluster of questions and wondering out loud exposes some intimate thoughts.
‘Marathon’ opens with grungy guitars and sees the artist exploring more of the issues that the relationship had while they were together, painting a picture of two people who aren’t often on the same page and using a thoughtful metaphor about being better than sprints than marathons to describe the way that things ended up panning out. There is something innately really personal and raw about the way that the artist writes that is stretched over these tracks, and their unconventional structures make for a conversational tone that feels effortlessly natural and flowing, doubling down on this personable feel.
The short sprint of ‘funny seeing you here’ describes another one of the pitfalls of going through a breakup as the artist humorously bumps into her ex in various different places throughout the track, culminating in impactfully blunt refrain of “if you don’t like it you can move”. More of this bluntness and forthright writing follows on ‘Suspension of Disbelief’, a track that sees the artist bemoaning things like the contradictions of her ex-partner and the ways that she would often willingly believe lies when she should know better, making for another relatable symptom of failing relationships that listeners will resonate with.
The fun, flowing feel of ‘galway’ ups the tempo a little bit and has some fun moments, melding Irish themes within the sound and lyrics to create something with a bit of a unique flair that stands out as a result, whereas the just over one minute long ‘Summer’ sees the artist using the seasons and similar things to highlight some of the differences that they found in their relationship in her typically humorous and scathing fashion.
The charming “na na na na na’s” of ‘Rules’ do a great job of adding a bit of levity and rousing appeal to a track that again dives into some of the complexities and discomfort found within that stuck out. Cleo is again trying to block out her memories and the difficulties that come with them on ‘Think About You’, a track that again has one of these really engrossing, grungy guitar parts that gives the track this grounded and distinctive feel as she looks to make sense of and come to terms with her feelings and pull herself together. The internal struggles that have come with this relationship and the artist finding her place following its dissolution make for some of the most compelling moments on this album, and it is interesting to hear somebody articulate such universal struggles in a way that feels so clear and powerful.
Cleo is hoping to push past these feelings and this situation on ‘Bubbles’, one of the most absorbing and sobering moments on the LP as a whole. The track does a great job of highlighting some of the realities of this breakup and the more mundane realities of just having to wait for these feelings to pass and for life to be able to just continue as normal without these waves of sadness.
Some more of these short, stream of consciousness tracks follow in the form of ‘break into 3’ and ‘easy’, and these tracks do a really great job in the context of the album of allowing the artist to vomit out all of her feelings and the things going through her head as she processes things and looks to purge this situation from her system, and as anybody has gone through a similar situation will attest, there is a real catharsis in doing just this.
‘maybe you’ve noticed’ is a track that sees the artist beginning to reflect on the album and the fact that a lot of the tracks have been centred around herself and the not the relationship, finding catharsis in that and the way that the focus has been on re-building and her own empowerment and self-actualisation. It feels like a big moment in the grander scope of the album and the artist’s journey as a whole, and makes for a really powerful message that feels liberating.
The album closes out with ‘happy baby’, a track that feels like a declaration of unwavering dedication and love, somewhat at odds with the tone of a lot of the rest of the album and armed with an undercurrent of intensity that leaves a lasting impression on you as a listener. On the whole, the album goes through the whole range of emotions that come with going through such a situation, ranging from sadness, to anger, to delusion, to acceptance, in a way that feels both dizzying but mostly consistent. The artist figuring out what she needs and what is best for her feels like the real crux of the release, with the relationship and reflecting on it just a means of figuring out what that is and helping her find the strength in her experiences to find that.
