Album Review: Juniper by Joy Crookes
Joy Crookes has not only survived her storm; she’s woven it into art that stands on bold terms. Juniper is an exhilarating, heart-rending listen, confirming her status as an artist with an old soul.
The long-awaited second album, Juniper, from the talented Joy Crookes doesn’t just pick up where her acclaimed 2021 debut Skin left off, but catapults us headlong into a whirlwind of emotion. This record is an unflinchingly personal chronicle of chaos and catharsis. Crookes has said Juniper narrates “an extremely difficult time” in her life when “ups and downs” barely cover it—a period of “total hedonism” where she felt “extremely alive,” crashing into “pretty crushing despair and extreme anxiety.” True to her word, the album swings dramatically between those extremes, delivering both intoxicated highs and brutal lows with a visceral immediacy. Every situation here feels lived-in and raw—“it’s me in the centre of it all,” Crookes notes of these songs—and taken as a whole, it’s a standalone work as emotionally compelling as it is sonically adventurous.
The record’s emotional scope is established from the first track. “Brave” opens in a hush of vulnerability, with Crookes admitting, “I get sick, I get tired of carrying this weight on my mind.” Her voice, rich with weariness, stretches around each syllable as she confesses “I can’t keep losing my mind,” before rising to a defiant hook: “I wanna be brave… It’s time I stop running away.” It’s a striking introduction—part plea, part pep-talk—that sets the tone for an album unafraid to delve into mental strain and self-doubt. But if Juniper begins in doubt, it quickly pivots to pure swagger on “Pass the Salt.” Over what is presumably a bold, bass-heavy groove, Crookes unleashes brassy one-liners with gleeful venom. “I shine and you get sunburn—that sounds like a you problem,” she smirks, dismissing detractors with a wit as sharp as her delivery. The track’s hip-hop bite is amplified by a guest verse from Vince Staples, whose laid-back flow plays a sly counterpart to Crookes’s rapid-fire jibes. Her confidence is ferocious and infectious. It’s a heady rush of braggadocio and playful spite—the sound of an artist reveling in momentary hedonism and hard-won self-assurance.
That whiplash from Juniper’s despair to decadence is no accident; the album thrives on such contrasts. “Carmen,” for instance, pairs breezy, punchy production with some of Crookes’s most introspective writing about self-image. The song’s narrative was inspired by a girl so effortlessly magnetic that all Crookes’s friends became obsessed—prompting Joy to examine her own insecurities as a brown South Londoner watching a “vanilla” fair beauty command the room. Rather than tearing the titular femme fatale down, Crookes sings in admiration, “I just wanna pay you attention… I want to be wanted like Carmen.” Her vocals are honeyed but edged with yearning. Through lyrics that acknowledge envy (“I get envious of that ‘vanilla’ type”), she ultimately flips the script into a celebration of women like Carmen rather than a competition. The hook blooms into a soulful ode, reminding us that under the song’s jaunty drumline and bright melody lies a sharp commentary on beauty standards and the way women are pitted against each other.
Elsewhere, Crookes explores the thrill and danger of love through clever metaphors and sultry atmospheres. “Perfect Crime” is exactly as seductive as its title suggests—a smoky neo-soul slow-burn that finds Joy comparing falling in love to committing a bank heist. Over a dusty, cinematic production (courtesy of frequent collaborator Blue May and producer Harvey Grant), her voice is all low-register allure, hovering between a purr and a sigh. She delivers tongue-in-cheek lines with a wink, confessing “I pour myself into you, still keep a glass of me too” amid the song’s noir mix of danger and desire. The hook—“I’m a killer… bang bang, gun fingers in the mirror, I won’t get caught this time, commit the perfect crime”—is as catchy as it is cheeky, Crookes turning a violent image into a mantra of empowerment. It’s a prime example of Juniper’s penchant for blending swagger with vulnerability: even at her most confidently seductive, she lets slip a hint of the fear and longing underneath. This nuanced emotional layering marks a growth from the more straightforward soul of her debut; Crookes is playing with genre (lo-fi R&B, trip-hop, a dash of retro torch song) and persona, and it’s thrilling to hear.
The first half rides high on attitude and groove, and its midpoint reveals the bitter crash after the party. “Mathematics”—a standout collaboration with UK rap icon Kano—disguises a tale of rejection and romantic frustration in a deceptively smooth R&B package. The song’s title hints at trying to solve the unsolvable, and indeed Crookes laments a lover’s cold calculation in matters of the heart: “good luck trying to work it out… oh baby, it’s not mathematics, it’s love” she sings wryly, her voice equal parts sweet and scathing. There’s anger simmering beneath the elegant chords; Crookes has explained that “Mathematics” was born of the fury she felt when a man tried to reduce their blossoming love to something logical and platonic. That frustration is palpable in her performance—at one point she’s “tired, crying on the salon floor… pretty but miserable,” at another she fondly recalls the passion (“had you on the kitchen floor… damn that shit was wonderful”) only to crash into loneliness in a “superstore.” Kano’s guest verse responds in kind, adding a poignant male perspective as he drops clever bars about messages left unread and relationships lost in translation. His smooth flow weaves through the bridge, almost conversing with Crookes—a surprise gift verse he recorded unprompted, moved by the song’s honesty.
True to its narrative of turbulent times, the album doesn’t settle into melancholy for long. “I Know You’d Kill” jolts the listener back to a mood of fierce loyalty and sisterhood. Over brassy flourishes and a head-nodding beat, Crookes practically glows with pride as she praises a ride-or-die confidante: “I know you’d kill—that’s why you shine, cut like a diamond, safe in your light.” Her vocal on this chorus is big and jubilant, channeling the energy of classic soul anthems celebrating friendship. It’s a needed shot of positivity and female camaraderie, and Joy sells it with gusto, belting high notes and ad-libbing with palpable joy. The song’s empowering spirit extends the album’s thematic through-line—even in darkness, Crookes finds salvation in her relationships and “lifeline” connections.
By contrast, “First Last Dance” wryly captures a different sort of coping mechanism: losing yourself in one more night on the dancefloor with an ex-lover you know isn’t good for you. A sly disco-funk undercurrent (complete with a playful Saturday Night Fever reference as she “feel[s] like Travolta”) gives this breakup tune an irresistibly glossy sheen. Crookes twirls through the verse recounting “crowded circles, all that small talk,” her tone almost amused, before admitting “we’ve got to co-depend… though I don’t like you, at least I’ve got a friend.” It’s that brutally honest self-awareness that makes the song tick: she knows this dance with heartbreak is unsustainable, but in the moment, it’s the only way to ease the sting of loneliness. As the chorus soars—“this will be my first last dance with you”—the irony that it likely won’t be the last time lingers bittersweetly.
The true gut-punch of Juniper arrives with “Mother,” one of the most searingly personal songs Crookes has ever written. Over a hushed, aching arrangement, Joy addresses generational trauma and her determination to break a painful cycle. The lyrics are unflinching. She sings to her mother about the inherited wounds they both carry—wounds inflicted by family history and abuse—and her voice cracks with emotion as she confronts them. “God knows what we carry from our history… hurt in the bloodline, I’m gonna break,” she vows, directly facing truths that many would bury. In the most harrowing lines, she reveals a dark commonality: “all these little boys were putting hands on where they ‘prolly shouldn’t—really wish that touch was something that we didn’t have in common.” Hearing Crookes deliver that lyric is startling; it lays bare generational hurt with devastating clarity. And yet, for all its anguish, “Mother” is fundamentally a song about resilience and hope. Crookes refuses to succumb to despair or let history repeat. In a powerful refrain, she assures, “We don’t have to carry on the past… I don’t wanna be like that.” Instead, she promises to end the cycle: “I won’t let my baby live with any of my past… I wanna break the cycle… leave the bad bad bad behind.”
Fittingly, the album offers glimmers of light after the storm. “Somebody to You” carries a rejuvenating sense of self-discovery, as Crookes disentangles herself from a codependent love. Riding a lilting groove and warm guitars, she admits to having completely lost herself—“putting you first, I paid the price… who am I when I’m out of your sight?”—but the song is anything but defeatist. Instead, Joy reclaims her autonomy with gentle triumph: “the less I need you, the more I see you as a mortal man… not your baby no more (but that doesn’t mean I’m losing love).” There’s a lovely nuance in that line: she sets a boundary without bitterness, asserting her independence while acknowledging that the love doesn’t vanish overnight.
On “Forever,” she turns her attention to mortality and remembrance, bringing the album’s themes of impermanence to a poignant peak. Over a sparse backdrop, Joy reflects on how “heartbreak [is] consistent like British weather,” yet some bonds transcend death itself. She recounts childhood memories—“saw my mum make my dad cry, as a child I learnt there’s no forever”—and a farewell to a loved one “six feet under, wrapped in white… tomorrow never guaranteed.” These vivid details give the song a raw intimacy, as if we’re reading her diary of loss. But rather than ending in darkness, Crookes finds a tender kind of solace: “you’re alive in me and that’s forever,” she sings, her voice lifting in a bittersweet melody that conveys both sorrow and comfort. It’s a quietly powerful realization—that memory and love can outlast physical presence, offering a form of salvation from grief. When she repeats “whether you’re with me or not, remember that we traded love and that’s forever,” it’s as much a plea to herself as to the listener to cherish what endures.
“Paris” is an epilogue that ties Juniper’s many threads together in a city of lights and shadows. Sonically, it’s as bold as any earlier track—blending moody R&B with a hint of dark trip-hop—while lyrically it reads like the morning-after journal entry from a wild, doomed affair. Crookes sketches a portrait of decadent self-destruction: “roses and parties and bitches and lobbies and white bags,” she lists over a throbbing beat, “nothing sweet about that.” You can practically see the 4 am neon haze as she sings of a lover who swept her up in a tempest of vice and passion. There’s disillusionment in her tone as she notes how this person charmed countless women, and a lingering hurt when she admits, “Paris will never, never be the same for me.” But among the scattered Polaroids of wild nights, Crookes slips in revelations of identity that give Paris its emotional core. In one striking verse, she confides that she “kinda wanted you to be my girlfriend… didn’t wanna fuck with no more Catholic guilt,” finally embracing a queer love free of shame. Her voice turns wistful as she repeats “I believed I was a sinner,” then practically glows in a moment of hard-won pride: “when it comes to pride, I’d raise my heart to a girl or guy.” It’s as if, amidst the chaos of Paris, Joy found a piece of her true self. She’s survived this tempest of hedonism and heartbreak, and she’s walking away wiser.
None of this emotional weight would land if Joy Crookes weren’t such a captivating songwriter and vocalist. Her lyricism throughout Juniper is both poetic and unflinchingly direct. She has a knack for the kind of details that paint a scene—crying on a salon floor, a house with a pool no one will swim in, dreadlocks growing blonder with lies—but she also isn’t afraid of plainspoken truths and profanity to make sure we feel every cut. That balance between elegance and bluntness gives the album its punch. One moment she’ll toss off a devastating one-liner or a witty kiss-off, and the next, she’s opening up to let her heartache bleed out on the page. It’s hard not to nod in admiration at her clever turns of phrase, then suddenly feel a lump in your throat when she shifts to confessional mode. And her voice—what an instrument it is here. Crookes’s vocal delivery has never been more dynamic; she uses every texture of her contralto to convey these highs and lows. On the upbeat tracks, she’s playful, cutting, even flirtatious, and on the ballads, she lets her tone deepen and sometimes fracture, as if the weight of the words is almost too much to bear. There’s a jazz singer’s finesse in her phrasing and a South London edge in her diction, and Juniper finds her confidently melding those influences. She can be as smoky and classic as Amy Winehouse or Sade one minute, and as frank and contemporary as an R&B diva the next.
The impact of Crookes’s collaborators on Juniper is also evident and largely positive. Production-wise, Crookes works closely with talents like Blue May, Tev’n, and Harvey Grant to craft a soundscape that is richer and more eclectic than Skin’s, yet still cohesive. There’s clear artistic growth in how much ground these 12 tracks cover: touches of blues, funk, and disco lace the R&B/soul foundation, and subtle South Asian elements even flicker in. Live instrumentation also plays a role—horns, strings, and choral backing vocals are used judiciously to amplify emotional moments, giving songs like I Know You’d Kill and Mother an almost cinematic grandeur. But significantly, Juniper never falls victim to overproduction; it sounds organic and direct from that turbulent period. You can tell the studio was her sanctuary—many performances are intimate as if we’re eavesdropping on late-night sessions where tears might still be drying on her cheeks or laughter hanging in the air. That authenticity means even the glossiest bangers carry emotional weight, and the quieter songs glow rather than fade. Where Skin occasionally played it safe within vintage soul/pop stylings in spots, Juniper feels riskier and more experimental, and it pays off. Crookes and her team have managed to make the album sound as unpredictable as the feelings it captures, yet as unified as the vision behind it.
Juniper solidifies Joy Crookes’s place as one of the most compelling young voices in British music. It’s a brave, layered sophomore effort that pushes her artistry forward without losing the qualities that made listeners fall in love with her in the first place—that smoky voice, that honest pen, and that blend of cultural influences shaping her sound. By focusing on a “violently turbulent” chapter of her life and refusing to flinch, she’s created an album that will likely resonate with anyone who’s experienced the rollercoaster of their twenties: the wild nights and bad decisions, the crippling anxieties and private breakdowns, the moments of clarity and the slow climb toward self-acceptance. There is darkness in this album, yes, but Crookes never lets it consume the narrative. Instead, she drags it into the light, examines it, and transforms it into songs that offer comfort and catharsis. As she sings on Forever, even painful endings can become a source of strength—“whether you’re with me or not, remember that we traded love… and that’s forever.” Juniper trades in love—lost, love found, love for others, and self-love—and that’s what ultimately shines through the turbulence. It’s an exhilarating, heart-rending listen—one that confirms Joy Crookes’s status as an artist with an old soul, a fresh perspective, and a fearless voice that is entirely her own.
Great (★★★★☆)
Favorite Track(s): “Pass the Salt,” “Mother,” “Carmen”