Photo from Ents24

All Bella Kay needs to write something raw and honest is her bedroom, a pen, and her guitar.

Growing from the foundations of her widely loved single ‘iloveitiloveitiloveit’, she sings confessions that most artists would be too scared to whisper. Her acceptance of the thornier parts of life experiences and relationships gives her the ability to write something that truly resonates with the listener. People find comfort in being seen, especially when it comes to the darker impulses they worry others might judge them for. Bella Kay uses her talent to show us that we do not have to be perfect in what we feel, or how we feel it.

Her debut album, My Reckless Abandon, focuses on just that. From the painful navigation of friends to lovers, the growing pains, to the slow process of learning to love oneself. She stands by the confessions sung before, but now she sings them louder, backed by the swelling of guitars, pianos, and synths. Her songs often start as raw, stripped-back acoustic introductions before transitioning into a grander revelation, the soft acoustics replaced by something grittier and more somber. The instrumentation is wide-ranging, with each shift signifying a change in her train of thought, moving from gentle reminiscence to the exact moment the rose-tinted glasses fall off and she sees the situation for what it always was.

Her lyrics are powerful, each track admitting a certain painful truth. Whether it is how she enjoys being messy and causing problems, or relapsing into bad habits where being used feels comfortable because it provides a fleeting sense of purpose, these are subjects most artists would not touch with a five-foot pole because its too exposed. But Bella writes these moments as stories, laying everything out on the table. Alongside this narrative honesty, her rich vocals paired with the intimate style of bedroom pop production make the listener feel entirely included in the space. You can relate to the experiences, and to the urgent desire to put pen to paper just to survive them.

The rest of the album fills in the spaces between them with equal vulnerability, with the surrounding tracks connecting her internal struggles to her external relationships, making the album feel more like a personal journal than just another indie-pop album.

It is within this journal that the familiar anchor of ‘iloveitiloveitiloveit’ captures the toxic comfort of being used just to feel a sense of purpose. The words, “I love it when we fight, and I like it when you're mean / We don't have to get into what that says about me,”expose a quiet desire for the push-and-pull of conflict. It is the craving to return to a relationship that is inherently damaging, simply because chaos has started to feel like a normal routine. The song is quick in pace, mimicking the frantic flickering between indecisive thoughts. A plucky, fast-paced guitar line drives the track forward, capturing the nervous energy of someone who knows what they are doing is wrong, but is running towards it anyway.

From there, My Reckless Abandon moves from relationship vulnerability to bodily vulnerability. ‘Sleep For Dinner’ explores the pain and heartache behind the devastating line, “How can something meant to keep you alive / Keep you from living?” The song begins on bare bones, a melancholy piano paired with a vocal delivery that sounds almost frightened to speak the words aloud. As the track progresses, the vocals grow more pained but are delivered with a striking strength and projection, sounding less like a quiet confession and more like a demand for answers from the universe.

Perhaps the most unique and raw moment on the album arrives with ‘A Father’s Lament’. It opens with a sweet, caring voicemail from her father, acting as a grounding prologue to an ode about his wise words over the years as he helped her navigate a difficult world. The chorus stands as a powerful, haunting statement: “Don't be too loud, our loud isn't their loud / Don't be too proud, girls like you can't be proud / Humble, smart, and patient, live those words like they're sacred / You're Black, baby girl, uh-huh, don't waste it, don't waste it.” It is a stark reminder of the specific boundaries the world tries to place on Black young women, and a father's urge for her to remain resilient. No matter how many times the world tries to break her, she must stand strong. Through these lyrics, Bella Kay offers a hopeful glance forward wishing that the generations after her will not have to receive the same heavy speech, and that the world might learn to be less cruel.

Bella Kay will only be going up from here. She has crafted a unique style defined by a warm chaos that invites the listener in rather than pushing them away. My Reckless Abandon is a form of modern-day catharsis, bringing us one step closer to acknowledging that the feelings we experience in the moments where we are entirely alone are human, flawed, and completely normal.