ALBUM REVIEW: Jade Bird - Who Wants to Talk About Love

Jade Bird’s third album ‘Who Wants to Talk About Love’ is laid out like a break-up speech, one of longing and aching. You can’t tell if you want to replay it over and over at 2am, or keep it in the back of your mind; too painfully beautiful to listen to again. 

Photo Credit: Jade Bird Press

She opens with ‘Stick Around’ which has a softened anger, like being screamed at by a lover from the top of a cliff. It is full of gut-wrenching lyricism, and yet this floats off on a hazy Americana guitar line, reminiscent of Emmylou or Bob Dylan. 

The title track, ‘Who Wants’ trembles with a childlike longing for comfort, the blank space between each pluck of her acoustic guitar hanging heavily over the album. There is a Phoebe Bridgers-esque liability that this song will fall apart at any given moment, held together by the warmth of each chorus, before falling back into a heart-breakingly delicate verse. 

'Avalanche' has a rawness that almost transcends the album, calling desperately for a “search party” to uncover her, a reminder that this album is far from an intimate conversation between listener and song writer, but an argument muffled by walls, a snatched view through a window, an emotion too deeply buried to fully reveal. 'Save Your Tears' and 'How To Be Happy', are the ‘poppy-est’ tunes on the album, power ballads that bounce like a First Aid Kit tune, sunny and clear, and brilliantly fun. 

Her album is a short 30 minutes and yet by the final songs, you are left feeling lifeless, like the ending of a monumental crying session where the only option is to go to bed and sleep off its intensity. Wish You Well is exactly this, admitting that she is left “on the floor” and fading out with a final cry of “I wish you well”. 

The end of the album feels exactly like a breakup, but one that will forever haunt you at 2am.