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Emily Stabell

Shawn | Album Review

He’s back and genuinely better than ever | Emily Stabell

The 26-year-old Canadian is back again with his fifth studio album, after four years since his last release. Shawn rewrites the narrative coming straight from his heart with deeply personal lyrics and anecdotes.


He released a film from one of his select shows called “For Friends and Family Only” only shown in theaters on November 14th, the night before the album release. The movie was filmed at the Bearsville Theatre in Woodstock, NY. 


Let’s dive into the album.


Track one, “Who I Am”, contains a lot. It feels like Shawn is explaining to his listeners why he had to step back for some time and how he felt doing it. Lines like “But I know I gotta do it, gotta put me first/Losin’ myself tryna make you proud” and “And it broke my heart when I cancelled tour/Had my soul and my head goin’ back and forth”. In terms of production, this song is flush with energy complete with upbeat folksy feel.


Track two, “Why Why Why”, continues the upbeat song with deep lyrics trend. Lyrics like “Thought I was about to be a father/Shook me to the core, I’m still a kid/Sometimes I still cry out for my mother/Why, why, why?”. This song feels like the ‘here’s what you missed’ conversation, letting the listeners step into Shawn’s brain. 


Track three, “That’s The Dream”, brings deeper lyrics with lines like “I know that space is supposed to help/But I feel like a shadow of myself”. A shorter song but emotionally intelligent nonetheless. 


Track four, “Nobody Knows”, dives into the things we often look past in a relationship. “Flyin’ too close to the sun” references Icarus, a Greek myth about a boy who made wings out of wax and flew too close to the sun, killing him when he fell. Shawn uses this reference to compare the rose-colored glasses many put on during a relationship to Icarus’ fated tale. 


Track five, “Isn’t That Enough”, gives the listener a look into Shawn’s battle with anxiety. “My hands still shaking/My mind’s still racing/My heart’s breaking in two/I’m still changing” Shawn highlights his progress and how he works through his anxiety. “Isn’t That Enough?” was kinda like I was up against this wall every day we were in the studio and all those walls kinda broke and everything stripped back and it was just me with a guitar singing in a room. It was like one mic put in front of me, one mic in front of Mike and Scott and Nate and we just played the song top to bottom and that just felt good to record and write like that again. Even for me as a singer, I forgot how good it feels to sing live with nothing in your ears just next to someone who’s singing from their heart. It was just a process of stripping back and a process of getting back to somewhere I felt like I never was in the first place” Shawn via AppleMusic


Track six, “Heart of Gold”, is about Shawn’s childhood friend, Deijomi, who sadly passed away in 2018 from a drug overdose. In The Clubhouse Sessions, Shawn talks about how this song was made and how it has helped him process the unprocessed feelings from the loss. “This is one of my favorites on the album, this one’s so loving. Deijomi, I love you man, this one’s for you” -Shawn via The Clubhouse Sessions


Track seven, “Heavy”, Shawn expands on the difficulty of confronting difficult emotions and acknowledging the help present in a relationship. The lyrics process the battle of opening up and mental health, “You’ve been rock steady tryna help me through/Now I’m finally ready to let you”. 


Track eight, “That’ll Be the Day”, is Shawn recognizing the day in the future after a breakup where the cycle ends. “But there will be a day when I don’t hear a sound/I’ll be six feet underground/And that’ll be the day I lose you”


Track nine, “In Between”,  reflects on the ups and downs of a past relationship. The chorus sums up how the last few moments of the connection felt, “What about the in-betweens?/You layin’ your head on me/Havin’ someone close to you, you trust/Isn’t that enough?”


Track ten, “The Mountain”, has a lot to unpack. The chorus references many things that people speculated were the cause of Shawn’s break like “drugs”, “love”, “a cult”, “God”, and even “aliens”. Later on in the song he switches up a lyric in the chorus, “You can say I like girls or boys/Whatever fits your mold” touching upon the speculations about his sexuality. This song feels like Shawn reclaiming the narrative.  


Track 11, “Rollin’ Right Along”, feels like the perfect closer. It’s happy, it’s folksy, and it’s hopeful. “Might lose my way/Gone, gone, gone/But I’m gonna stay/Rollin’ right along”


Track 12, “Hallelujah”, covers Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. I went to the movie theater to

watch the one-night-only film For Friends and Family Only and I’m not lying when I say this brought me to tears. I’m a sucker for a Hallelujah cover (shoutout Jeff Buckley), but Shawn’s raw emotion and isolated vocals really did it for me.  


This album seems like a step, or maybe a leap in the right direction for Shawn. I’m excited to see where this album brings him and I believe that the fans will welcome him back with open arms.




Photo courtesy of Rolling Stones

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