Demi Lovato's new album brings singer back to her emo punk roots

About to land in Brazil for a series of performances, including the Rock In Rio main stage on September 4th, singer Demi Lovato (30) released her eighth studio album, “Holy Fvck” last Friday (19). It is the second album that the star has released since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic and the main sound reference for her first tour in four years.
Popular in Brazil, Lovato has performed here on several different occasions between 2009 and 2017. Her last visit to the Brazilian territory, in November 2018, was canceled when the singer overdosed in July of the same year and ended up in the ICU in Los Angeles, United States. The “Holy Fvck Tour” makes its international debut in São Paulo on August 30th, continues with an extra show in São Paulo on the 31st and a concert on September 1st in Belo Horizonte, before the artist performs for the public at the Rock in Rio music festival.
I listened to the new album and these are my impressions of the singer's incursion into rock, which has become a trend within the music market in the last two years. Check it out!
The disc opens with “Freak” so you forget about the perfectly polished image of a pop star. As she herself announced in recent interviews promoting the album, Demi Lovato is an outsider. And in this track, well accompanied by the pop punk singer YUNGBLUD, she decided to inaugurate her new phase assuming that she is not a normal person — and other people just need to deal with it.
"Skin of my teeth" is the album's first single, features a music video released in June where Lovato is straightforward: she knows what people say when she goes to rehab again, but she doesn't need anyone to count how many times she went there and no one is more tired than her to live that kind of experience. The track deconstructs Hole's "Celebrity Skin" and sets the tone and attitude the singer has taken on in this new era.
"Substance" is the second single from the album, released in July. The track brings originality, authenticity and confirmed Demi's rock n' roll DNA by making her own sound without needing songs from other artists. The video that accompanied its release has references to her own career and to the breaking of paradigms she's doing now.
“Eat me” is a heavy rock track with a chorus of guttural screams, the sound matches the message that she will no longer please the audience's musical and imagery palate. That's who she really is and everyone will have to swallow it. The participation of electropop singer Royal & The Serpent was a suprirese, making the track even more visceral.
“Holy Fvck” is a track loaded with sexual power and no shame about it. Here Lovato claims to know the value she has in all environments where she passes by through a strong guitar and well-marked drums. It could be a hit for the most popular bands in the genre and is a bold choice to name the album in conservative times.
“29”, one of the most anticipated and talked about songs even before its release, is a lament and a reflection on past traumas. Toxic and abusive relationships are a reality for many girls and for Demi Lovato at 17, dating a man 12 years her senior, it was no different. It took her herself to reach the age her partner was when he started dating her for this dangerously real song to emerge.
On “Happy Ending”, the album's confessional tone continues in a strong sound about the near-death experience. The singer describes the urgency of finding meaning in life, the fear of not having a happy ending and the disadvantage of living according to the opinion of others. The lyrics were written with the punk musician Jutes, Demi's current boyfriend.
“Heaven” is marked by guitar riffs reminiscent of Beautiful People or Personal Jesus, classic metal and alternative rock. Lovato's rockstar persona bets on the complete subversion of a biblical verse that condemns masturbation. She totally inverts the message and makes the song about paradise, with several sacred elements associated with the promotion of female pleasure.
Born in the state of New Mexico, the singer is categorical when singing the lines of “City of Angels”: Los Angeles has nothing to surprise her anymore after fifteen years living in the city. In a track of pure pop rock, she claims to rename the “city of angels” and breathe new life into the land of Hollywood dreams.
“Bones”, the most uncompromising song on the album, marks the beginning of a wave of romantic songs, in their own way, that are present after this point. The track “Wasted” is a rock classic about a love story that is born ready, Lovato's vocals sound like something out of this world and totally different from the other tracks. A remarkable point!
“Come together” is more of a romantic and melodic song, with a catchy pre-chorus. When you love, it seems that the world has stopped until you find the person you love again. Reminds me of the emo sound of the late 2000s.
In “Dead friends”, she finds that life is full of losses. Rather than grieving, Demi celebrates the time her friends who have passed away were on Earth, all the while wondering why they left and she, who made the same choices as some of them, didn't.
“Help me” could be a great rock track from the 2000s. Another collaboration, this time with the rock band Dead Sara, where the owner of the album lets the guests be part of the song and not just fit into a few lines.
“Feed” is more of a traditional rock track. This time the singer brings the dichotomy of a tale of the Cherokees, a Native American Indian tribe. The track can suit anyone, but in Lovato's trajectory, the battle against drug addiction is represented by the story of two wolves that live inside her: each has their intentions, but it's up to her to decide which wolf to feed, meaning which side of yourself will have control of your life.
“4 ever 4 me” is openly inspired by the Goo Goo Dolls' “Iris” and the soft rock influence is audible in the melody and lyrics. A song about eternal love closing an album that seems to have transitioned between Lovato's fury, self-analysis and passion in recent years.
The album represents a reboot of Demi Lovato fourteen years after her music debut with two pop rock albums. What would have happened if she'd taken the cobblestone rock path instead of the paved pop road? “Holy Fvck” comes to answer that question. Sonically cohesive, yet diverse, its greatest asset, in addition to Demi's powerful and elastic voice, is its lyrics. Lyrically, almost everything goes far beyond expectations. When she plays with words, she creates extremely personal, confessional and heartfelt poetry. It's like listening to someone pull all the skeletons out of the closet and watch this person feel lighter for doing so. More than a collection of phrases ready to become captions on social media (but we have several verses that would serve that purpose), the rock star's eighth studio album delivers rock n' roll attitude with substance - pun not intended.