Portraits review | Birdy is reborn with high-octane pop bangers

★★★★☆

Birdy sheds her teenage self, delivering an unexpected but masterful blend of maximalist pop and soulful ballads. Here’s our Portraits review.

We met Birdy when she was barely a teenager. Sat behind a piano, making a Bon Iver track even sadder, her brand was locked in from day one. In the same way that child stars struggle for permission to age or battle forever to shake off the shackles of their biggest role, the character of Birdy felt much the same.

While releasing stunning record after stunning record, proving that the power of good songwriting can never be shrugged off or underestimated, every album was beloved by fans. But that teenager still lingered around, keeping Birdy stuck in simplicity, piano ballads and her old self.

From day one, Portraits was an obvious and aggressive shake-off of everything prior. The folky look was gone, the demure all-natural press shots were deleted, and the scope was widened. And what emerged immediately felt like a version of Birdy that was thoroughly and colourfully herself; theatrical, varied, interesting, creative, bold.

We’ve heard more and more of it on singles like ‘Raincatcher’ and ‘Paradise Calling’, but on the full album, Birdy builds a unique sonic world borrowing from everything she’s learnt and every artist she’s learnt from. Boiling all her inspirations into her boldest record yet, Portraits is a reintroduction to the artist.

You hear it from minute one. As ‘Paradise Calling’ bursts to life, the 80s-inspired all-out pop track is a feel-good floor-filler that you blast in your headphones when you need to walk more confidently.

No one would ever expect the girl that released ‘Skinny Love’ to end up here, unleashing a high-octane avant-pop banger, but it’s so well done it’s like she was made for it. Similarly, ‘Heartbreaker’ speaks much of the same as Portraits hosts some incredibly maximalist, full-production moments that blow Birdy’s identity as a simple piano ballad singer-songwriter way out of your mind.

But that isn’t to say Portraits denies Birdy’s past. Slower cuts like ‘Ruins I’, ‘Battlefield’ and ‘In Your Arms’ prove that this new world doesn’t need to hide or deny her incredible ability at penning stunning ballads.

We're having a ..P O R T R A I T S.. listening party over on @STATIONHEAD at 8pm tomorrow, come and join me 🤍https://t.co/mNFnJm4ABO pic.twitter.com/dP0DQYyadF

— Birdy (@birdy) August 18, 2023

In fact, ‘In Your Arms’ might be one of her best yet. Instead, what’s so magical about this record is that Birdy is masterful at tension, learning the power of delay and delivery as she moves from slow, haunting tracks or lingering and unsettling introductions into huge climactic moments.

You can see exactly where that listening has come from. Portraits is through and through a sonic ode to Kate Bush. That’s a line many people say about so many artists, becoming an easy and lazy reference to stick on anything slightly weird but not too out there.

But when it comes to Portraits, Kate’s influence is everywhere. ‘Raincatchers’ could be mistaken for a Kate Bush lost track. With its orchestral swells and specific storytelling lyrics, it’s deeply reminiscent of ‘Cloudbusting’.

READ MORE: The Greta Garbo of Pop | Kate Bush’s classic film and literary influences

Taking what she’s learnt from melodramatic ballads, ‘Raincatchers’ is amazing as we see Birdy take a leap and land two feet in the world of all-out, almost camp lyrical storytelling that Kate Bush rules.

Elsewhere, the introduction to ‘Ruins I’ reminds you of the tension-building intro to ‘Wow. Or the crunchiness of ‘Battlefield’ harks back to ‘Breathing’. In the same way that Kate Bush tunes feel like they should be narrating a play or soundtracking grand scenes in a musical, Portraits dives deep into the same theatrical waters and emerges victorious.

Throughout the record, its joy comes from the joy you can hear in all of Birdy’s decisions. As she candidly sings “It’s been a shitty night” on ‘I Wish I Was A Shooting Star’, it seems the artist has let go and let loose. As though she’s finally been allowed to make the album she wants to make, the album the 27-year-old wants to make, without having to fit any remaining mould left from her 14-year-old self.

 

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Portraits shows Birdy has finally moved on from those early years, no longer concerned with trying to replicate the success of ‘Skinny Love’ or ‘People Help The People’. And as you dive into this album of unabashed pop, theatrical details and sharp yet spontaneous lyricism, you can sense the freedom Birdy feels.

Hoping that this is merely the start of a whole new artistic path for Birdy as we stray further down the road of her creative influences and impulses, Portraits is a grand reintroduction of an artist finally set free to soar.