Album Review: Halsey - 'If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power'

Halsey shakes the pop stylings of last year's Manic for an album that will be less palatable to the masses but ultimately more interesting. 

If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power has producers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ sonic signature written all over it; the Nine Inch Nails duo’s industrial rock undertones complementing Halsey’s theatrical storytelling well. The music might lean to Reznor and Ross' style, but the lyrics are all Halsey - deeply poetic and filled with vivid imagery.

No stranger to concept albums (they followed their dystopian Badlands debut with the Shakespearean Hopeless Fountain Kingdom), Halsey - who recently had their first child - appears on the album's cover in a reimagining of Jean Fouquet’s Virgin & Child Surrounded By Angels. The record and its accompanying one-hour fantasy film of the same name, centre around pregnancy, love, sexuality, and autonomy.

Dave Grohl’s drums on pop punk Honey and Fleetwood Mac guitarist Lindsey Buckingham’s finger-picked guitar on the sweet, folky Darling provide album highlights, but it’s I Am Not A Woman, I’m A God with its propelling synths that really stands out. It's the type of song that grows on you upon every listen - once you get past the jarring dissonance, it's hard to get the chorus' hook out of your head.

If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power is a brave and ambitious record, one that Halsey, Reznor and Ross manage to successfully pull off.

Find out more about Halsey here.