Lily Allen is 'vicious' and 'raw' on her tell-all break-up album

Lily Allen has had two previous UK number one albums

As break-up albums go, Lily Allen's new record West End Girl is one for the history books.

Written and recorded in just 10 days, it's a real-time account of her shock, grief, confusion and anger, as her four-year marriage to actor David Harbour fell apart, amid accusations of infidelity.

In interviews, Allen has stressed the lyrics aren't necessarily the gospel truth - because she "wasn't sure what was real, and what was in my head" as she processed the end of the relationship.

But critics have lavished praise on the record, calling it a "jaw-dropping" and "brutal" act of "personal exorcism", while praising Allen's gift for melody, on songs that span flamenco, bossa nova, and "infectious pop".

'Rooted in darkness'

West End Girl is the star's first album in seven years, following 2018's Mercury Prize-nominated No Shame.

Speaking to Perfect Magazine earlier this week, Allen said she had continued writing in the intervening years, but had struggled to feel "emotionally attached" to the material.

"I just didn't think it was any good," she said, before confessing: "It's easier to write funny things that are rooted in darkness or anger or... terminal hatred."

West End Girl marries all of those emotions to pithy, witty storytelling that's been Allen's trademark since her debut, Alright, Still in 2006.

Lily Allen and her ex-husband, Stranger Things actor David Harbour, pictured in 2022

Narratively, it begins with the singer falling in love, moving to New York with her two daughters, and setting up home in "a nice little rental near a sweet little school".

But the first signs of trouble begin when she's cast in a West End Play (Allen received a Laurence Olivier nomination for her stage debut in 2:22 A Ghost Story, in 2021).

"That's when your demeanour started to change," she sings, as clouds gather over the breezy musical backdrop. "You said that I'd have to audition, I said 'You're deranged'".

As the album progresses, the relationship continues to sour.

Her husband disappears for weeks on end, and Allen, or the character she is portraying, reluctantly accepts the conditions of an open marriage.

"He had an arrangement, be discreet and don't be blatant / There had to be payment, it had to be with strangers."

It all blows up when she finds text messages, and she says: "Is it just sex or is there emotion?"

In one of the album's most brutal scenes, Allen, or her character, visits an apartment where she believed her husband was practising karate, only to discover a room scattered with sex toys and "a shoebox full of handwritten letters from brokenhearted women".

When she finally ends the relationship, she's bewildered and wounded by his indifference, wondering over and over, "why won't you beg for me?"

It's only on the two final tracks where she accepts the need to move on and burn her bridges.

"I will not absorb your shame, it's you who put me through this," she sings over a stripped-bare beat on Let You W/in. "I can walk out with my dignity if I lay my truth out on the table."

'Sharp, pithy pop'

The musician has been careful to clarify that some of the songs are written "in character", saying that the lyrics "could be considered autofiction" - a genre that combines autobiography and fiction.

Harbour has also been circumspect about the end of the marriage. "I'm protective of the people and the reality of my life", he told GQ magazine in April.

"There's no use in that form of engaging [with tabloid news] because it's all based on hysterical hyperbole."

But reviews of West End Girl have understandably focused on the lyrics.

It is "a brutal, tell-all masterpiece," said The Independent's Hannah Ewens in a five star review.

"This musical of deceit and suffering puts her in the starring role, seizing control of her narrative and holding little back."

"Despite the heartache, or perhaps because of it, she sounds artistically reinvigorated," argued Adrian Thrills in the Daily Mail, awarding the album four stars.

"There's a touch too much auto-tune on her voice at times, but no doubting her ability to convey raw emotion with sharp, pithy pop."

It's a "victorious comeback" that represents the star "at her very best", said the NME's Ali Shutler.

"There's a lot of grief and misery [but] Allen's always had a knack for making devastation sound exciting."

"Anyone who's been betrayed will welcome the bravery of her honesty," wrote Helen Brown in The Telegraph, "while no doubt counting their blessings not to live in the emotionally detached celebrity world of sad sex and lonely mansions."

"It's hard not to wonder whether West End Girl is going to get the reception it deserves," noted The Guardian's Alexis Petridis, calling it a "great pop album regardless of the subject matter".

"Perhaps some listeners will view it as too personal to countenance. Or perhaps fans who have grown up alongside Allen, now 40, will find something profoundly relatable in the story it has to tell."

West End Girl is a pun on the singer-turned-stage star's west London roots

West End Girl will no doubt fuel a renewed tabloid frenzy over Allen's love life. Heck, I've just spent 800 words summarising her account of the relationship.

But in her own words, the album was necessary. At the start of the year, she took time off her hit BBC podcast Miss Me? to deal with her spiralling mental health and checked into rehab.

"The feelings of despair that I was experiencing were so strong," she told Vogue.

"The last time that I felt anything like that, drugs and alcohol were my way out, so it was excruciating to sit with those [feelings] and not use them."

Writing West End Girl, it seems, was her way of coping, of healing and, just maybe, of settling scores.

"If what you're doing isn't provocative, what's the point?" she told Perfect Magazine. "And if it's not scary, what's the point? I'm not here to be mediocre.

"My strength is my ability to tell a story. And so I'm going to lean into that. I have to. It's all I have."