What’s this? After an extended period of ingratiating himself to pop fans everywhere, Swedish artist Brother Leo has this week released his full-length debut album. This is ‘PoP Poetry’.
What’s on it? At this point, it plays out almost like a Greatest Hits collection, with it housing all of the singles he’s released since 2019’s ‘Barcelona’. It also features three brand-new tracks, plus a new, PoP Poetry version of his debut single from 2018, ‘Strangers On An Island’.
Highlights? ‘Barcelona’ remains his ‘Stairway To Heaven’ and still has the power to stop you in your tracks three years later, no matter how many times you’ve listened to it already. ‘Sad Child’ should really, ironically enough, be prescribed for depression. ‘Hello Life’ is a lyrically astute, melodically stunning mid-tempo tune that is simultaneously seeped in and encouraging of self reflection – and who are any of us to argue? ‘Living In A Zoo’ sounds like the most fun he’s having on the whole album (infectiously so, at that) – both in tone and in its lyric of essentially giving up on trying to take life seriously anymore. And finally, ‘People’ is perhaps the closest he gets to the music of his that most of us first fell in love with when he was releasing it as Ola – bizarrely, even more so than the actual collaboration he has on the album with his old artist moniker, ‘A Friend In Me’. But of course the whole album is a carefully slotted together body of work that deserves your full attention. It’s the sound of a talented artist getting creative while writing a new chapter in his career, but ending up penning several spin-offs in the process, too.
What does he say? “It’s been 5 years in the making and tbh I can’t believe it’s here… The blood, the sweat, the tears, the dreams, the high hopes, the fears, the detours, the self-doubt, the crazy highs, the pit falls, the long nights, the insights, the fight to stay brave and keep the direction of the vision! Im so fkn proud I took the time and followed my vision of giving birth to Brother Leo and creating the freedom and space I needed to do this my own way, with the ppl I love! From me to you! PoP Poetry.”
You can find ‘Kill The Dark’ on our Best New Pop playlist.
