From its first moments, the powerful undertow of Julia-Sophie‘s debut album, Forgive Too Slow, pulls you deep under the weight of its untold stories of love and loss. A significant shift from her almost-mainstream past with garage rock duo Little Fish, Forgive Too Slow artfully navigates the beautiful mess of pure, human condition with glitchy electronic pop and twilight ambient noise.
Things begin purposefully and poignantly with ‘2AM’ , its fleeting late night chill underscored by contradictory emotional impulses. Hushed words slow down time: “It was fun for a while…” Julia-Sophie whispers, an ambiguous crackle in her voice. The haunting quality of her bruised, but not broken vocal brings to mind Elena Tonra’s solo work as Ex:RE. Throughout Forgive Too Slow, the raw ache in her words is the difference that sets this album apart, from the descending longing of ‘I Was Only’, to the quiet desperation of waiting for a reply that never comes in ‘Telephone’ . She says just enough to carry across the weight of her feeling, but never so much to betray the memory: “I wait for you to call, but the silence breaks me.”
Julia-Sophie’s influences are embedded (never paraded) into the album’s structure and musicality. There’s a touch of Aphex Twin’s brutalist sound architecture, Kraftwerk’s meticulous tonal precision, and at its core, the poise of Thom Yorke, James Blake and artists who know how to perfectly balance the human-tech equation in electronic music. This blend creates an immersive, layered soundscape where analog synths and drum machines add tactile textures to mirror the visceral experience laid open in the lyrics. ‘I Was Only’ invites us in with a seemingly harmless dance hook line, only to crash into the intensity of ‘Lose My Mind’, where the buzzy rumbles and skippy rhythms evoke a chaotic release, reflecting the steady self-erasure that builds over the course of the story: “Can you feel that my heart is breaking/ I’m lying with you one last time/ Cos when I’m with you I lose my mind”. The trance-pulse beats of lead single ‘Numb’ also belie the essential sadness of Julia-Sophie’s words and feelings of being trapped between reality and what we want to believe is true: “I feel the weight of the world lost in my bones / Sinking alone / Love is not enough / It’s the crying and the punch”.
The songs are carefully ordered, giving Forgive Too Slow an overall narrative that is strangely both enigmatic in its subject matter and evidently about the interplay between inner turmoil and outward vulnerability. ‘Comfort You’ explores these contrasting moods as frantic beats and heavy drones compete alongside acapella sections. Adjacent tracks ‘Falling’ and ‘Just Us’ book-end this unrest, unmasking contradictory facets of love, loss, and self-discovery. Yet, like overhearing a heated conversation through a locked door, we never quite know where one story ends and the other begins.
‘Wishful Thinking’ offers a moment of respite, its more conventional electronic pop offering us a deep breath after the intensity of the previous tracks. This deliberate shift to a lighter, more hopeful space provides a necessary pivot point for the self-awareness implied in ‘Better’ . As it emerges from its deep, low drone Julia-Sophie’s voice echoes in whispers that melt into the insistent beats: “All the things we can’t erase / We could end and start again”.
Closing song, recent single ‘Telephone’ encapsulates the true essence of Forgive Too Slow. There is tenderness, despair and nostalgia all delivered in a relatable and personal way. Its simple, steady bass line and touching melody convey the bittersweet beauty to be found even in our most fragile moments. It is a nice touch that ‘Telephone’ is also a love song of sorts to Julia-Sophie’s home of Oxford, naming the Cowley Road – a formative place of historical significance in the local music scene.
If Forgive Too Slow is something of an artistic catharsis, it’s never self-indulgent. Sit with it a while and you will hear that its small but vital nuances make it so much more affecting than casual listening can convey. It seems Julia-Sophie has discovered a new voice in the quiet corners of solitude and reflection, delivering a vibrant and heartfelt album that breathes real, unflinching life into electronic music.
