After listening to more than 200 albums released in 2025, I’ve grown dizzy from a musical landscape in constant motion. Sounds shift, genres intersect and new ideas flash by in an endless state of reinvention. Amid that chaos, “Oblivion” — the sixth full-length studio album from South African singer-songwriter Alice Phoebe Lou — offers a moment of stillness and a timeless reminder of music’s power to slow you down and make you feel human again.
If you’re asking yourself, “Alice Phoebe who?,” don’t worry; you’re not alone. The South-African born Alice Matthew, known by her stage name Alice Phoebe Lou, has been quietly crafting her own corner of the music world for nearly a decade. Since releasing her debut full-length album “Orbit” in 2016, she has built a devoted fanbase worldwide for her ethereal voice and independent spirit. In 2020, her spellbinding track “Witches” went viral and introduced her to a new wave of listeners — myself included.
I’ve found something to love in every project she’s released. None so far have matched the quiet brilliance of “Orbit,” one of the rare albums I would rate a 10/10. Yet “Oblivion” comes remarkably close. A breath of fresh air in a year of overproduced and overthought music, it presents another collection of intimate, bare-boned songs that never rely on flashy production, complex songwriting or powerhouse vocals.
Lou took on the role of sole producer for the first time with “Oblivion,” shaping the album entirely herself. The minimally-produced result is a particularly intimate and independent project reminding us that simplicity can be just as powerful — and often more beautiful — than perfection.
Sonically, “Oblivion” feels like a reconnection with Lou’s early days as a musician. She trades the dreamy synth textures of her 2021 albums “Glow” and “Child’s Play” for the organic instrumentation that defined her beginnings. In a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” session following the album’s release, Lou reflected on “going full circle and taking inspiration from my early busking days.” This humble background shines through in this album where each song feels patient and grounded rather than manufactured or polished.
In an era obsessed with self-improvement and transformation, Lou chooses to stop and smell the flowers on “Oblivion.” The album opens and closes in stillness — unfolding as a meditation on love, presence and the beauty of simply existing rather than racing toward becoming something more. The opening track “Sailor” sets this tone early, suggesting that what is sought reveals itself only once the searching stops. The contours of this realization are expressed in “Pretender,” in which she sings: “I’m stronger now that I’m softer too / I’m older now but feel younger than when I pretended to know everything.”
Lou’s acceptance of the world around her deepens as the album unfolds, most clearly in “Mind Reader” and the title track “Oblivion.” In “Mind Reader,” she grapples with the quiet truth that we can never fully know the people we love; in “Oblivion,” she lets go of ego, expectation and the gaze of others. The concept of surrender feels like the emotional throughline of the record — an unburdening that makes room for real creation to bloom.
What could be seen as a weakness of “Oblivion” — its simplicity — is ultimately its defining strength. This aspect of Lou’s lyrics gives the project its emotional clarity, gently stripping away all pretense until what’s left feels unguarded and real. On the album’s most luminous track, “Darling,” her plain, wholehearted language lets the joy of finally finding love come through naturally without embellishment.
Although lines such as “Show me how to love again / I’ve waited all my life” or “You should all choose with your hearts” might read as almost naïve on their own, in the context of “Oblivion,” their simplicity feels like a refusal to complicate something inherently pure.
The closing track, “With or Without,” encapsulates the album’s essence with the simple refrain “with or without him.” The incessant repetition of these words cause them to shed their literal meaning — transcending to a final meditation on acceptance. It’s a fitting finale for the album, reaffirming once again that peace is found not in attachment, but in freely existing.
While the record thrives in its understated cohesion, “Old Shadows” momentarily breaks it. Lou’s apologetic plea (“Be patient with me, love”) carries an emotional gravity which, though deeply moving, feels thematically out of step with the album’s lighter embrace of imperfection. Still, even this dissonant moment adds to the album’s overall humanity, reflecting the fact that self-acceptance rarely arrives without hesitation.
Soft guitar lines, gentle percussion and airy harmonies leave room for Lou’s voice to breathe and warble freely throughout the album, producing a lived-in feeling. Each track feels free of structure and suspended in time.
The result is an album that sounds less like a performance — Lou doesn’t chase reinvention or spectacle — and more like a return to something deeply human, in fact more alive than many recent releases. In its quiet honesty, Lou reminds us that the most powerful art often comes not from striving, but from surrender.
