Holly Humberstone kicks off ‘Cruel World’ era with new single ‘To Love Somebody’

Holly Humberstone has returned to confirm that her next album, ‘Cruel World’, will arrive on 10th April via Polydor Records. The follow-up to her 2023 debut ‘Paint My Bedroom Black’, the LP was born from a routine of daily studio sessions with collaborator Rob Milton, during which Holly delved even deeper into exploring the power of romantic, platonic, and feminine love.

Having dropped ‘Die Happy’ at the end of last year, she’s officially introduced ‘Cruel World’ via new single ‘To Love Somebody’ - a bittersweet earworm of a track that holds onto the idea that any relationship, no matter how doomed, has a silver lining. “In ‘To Love Somebody’ I wanted to capture that contradiction: to love somebody, is to hurt somebody and to lose somebody, well at least you got to love somebody,” Holly has noted of the song. “In order to feel extreme happiness, you have to know extreme sadness. That’s the tension of the record.”

The new cut has also arrived alongside a deliciously Gothic video directed by Silken Weinberg (known for her work with Ethel Cain) that nods to Nosferatu, Victorian theatre, and Grimm’s  Fairy Tales - all references that are weaved throughout the visual landscape of ‘Cruel World’. Check it out below.