Baby Queen - The Yearbook

Baby Queen has been drip-feeding ‘The Yearbook’ mixtape since the start of the year, and so much of this 10-track release will be familiar to those in her rapidly expanding, self-named Baby Kingdom. Collected together, however, Bella Latham’s niche of ultra-timely, self-lacerating pop becomes even more streamlined; doubling down on themes of mental health, social media and the general Problems Of Youth Today, there’s such a strong and cohesive point of view here, you can’t help but invest. The songwriting is clever, too: shimmering, slightly ‘80s pop (‘Raw Thoughts’) lining up against spoken word monologues (‘Narcissist’, ‘Baby Kingdom’) and introverted balladry (‘These Drugs’). Hyper polished, it would be an even greater window into her lyrical themes to see her make something a little more rough around the edges, but ‘The Yearbook’ is more than good enough to graduate to the next round.