FEATURE:
The Best Albums of 2025
Jehnny Beth – You Heartbreaker, You
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I am almost halfway…
PHOTO CREDIT: Johnny Hostile
through my run of features where I celebrate and recognise the best albums of this year. Some of my favourites in there. One of the punchiest and most economical albums of the year, I want to shine a spotlight on Jehnny Beth’s You Heartbreaker, You. Prior to getting to a couple; of reviews who herald an explosive album that is loud, raw, primal and extraordinary, there are some interviews I want to bring in. Highlighting You Heartbreaker, You as “an album to surrender to, to become obsessed with, to play so loud it's painful”, I want to start out with 15 Questions and some of the questions they posed. If you have not heard this incredible album, then make sure that you do:
“For you to get started, do there need to be concrete ideas – or what some have called a 'visualisation' of the finished work? What does the balance between planning and chance look like for you?
It needs to be a necessity and I nurture that feeling every day to keep it alive. It’s not work, it’s not a hobby, it’s a way of living.
Being inspired is far better than being ok - and the only way I can exist in this world.
Is there a preparation phase for your process? Do you require your tools to be laid out in a particular way, for example, do you need to do 'research' or create 'early versions'?
You just need to do it, without judgement. Wake up, do it, decide later. It’s not as complicated as it seems.
And also take breaks, enjoy your life. You don’t have to work 3 hours straight to be productive, this is not office work.
For You Heartbreaker, You, what did you start with? If there were conceptual considerations, what were they?
The idea of the new record came as I was onstage in America.
We were playing a metal/hardcore festival called aftershock and the connection with the audience was so intense and real, I made a mental note to write a record with that energy in mind.
Tell me a bit about the way the new material developed and gradually took its final form, please.
I asked Johnny Hostile to start writing new music on guitar again. I knew he was an incredible guitarist but he became a real riff machine.
When I started hearing all those intense heavy riffs, I felt immediately inspired and I knew we were on the right path.
After finishing a piece or album and releasing something into the world, there can be a sense of emptiness. Can you relate to this – and how do you return to the state of creativity after experiencing it?
I don’t really relate to that feeling. Creating is part of my life and it never ends.
Moments I am not creating per se, I am living and collecting inspirations. The only emptiness I have experienced in my life was related to loss.
I would love to know a little about the feedback you've received from listeners or critics about what they thought some of your songs are about or the impact it had on them – have there been “misunderstandings” or did you perhaps even gain new “insights?”
Straight from the beginning when we released the first song “BROKEN RIB” the responses from fans have been incredibly positive. Everyone seems to need a loud guitar record right now (I know I do!).
Personally I think it is the best work I have ever done”.
I will move to an interview from Music Week. I have been a fan of Jehnny Beth since her Savages days, and I love everything she puts out into the world. On You Heartbreaker, You, she has released this wonderful work. Not as covered and highly-rated as I think it deserves, there is no denying You Heartbreaker, You can stand alongside the best and most powerful albums of this year. Definitely one of my picks from 2025. A masterful work from an astonishing songwriter:
“It’s been five years since your last solo album, why is now the right time for a new Jehnny Beth record?
“To make a record, it has to itch so hard that there’s nothing you can do but do it. We’ve been touring a lot; we played massive stadiums with Depeche Mode in Europe, and Queens Of The Stone Age in America. We also did some hardcore metal festivals where Korn or Tool would be headlining. I was on stage, and suddenly I had a vision of what this record was going to be. I knew I wanted it to start with a scream, which it does. The times are really absurd; it’s an insane time and I feel insane. Everything’s broken and we need music to bring it back together.”
How did You Heartbreaker, You come together from a musical standpoint?
“We had one rule in the studio, which was: ‘If we’re bored, we delete it.’ Boredom is the last thing you want people to feel; it’s a waste of their money and time. You don’t want to waste time getting people to understand your feelings – they don’t really give a shit. It needs to hit straight to the point and not take detours.”
The album is coming out via Fiction, which is owned by Universal but operates as an independent. What does independence mean to you?
“Independence is whatever’s in the contract – that’s where your independence is. You can have really hardcore artist contracts with independent record labels where they take a lot, or you can have licensing deals that free you very quickly. I look at the contracts and not necessarily which house they’re in.”
As a solo act, how are you navigating the rising costs of touring?
“Times are definitely harder compared even to 10 years ago, but I’ve always been into the mentality of doing it yourself as much as you can. The responsibility falls on the artist more and more to multiply your sources of income so you can survive. I don’t give a fuck about becoming a millionaire, but you need to survive because that’s the only way you can keep creating. [The problem is] all the way from pay-to-play, to bands who’ll [only] pay you €500 to support them in a stadium. There’s a responsibility for [bigger] artists and management and the streaming services [to offer help]”
Let’s get to one mor interview before we get to some reviews. DIY observed how Jehnny Beth was moving away from the more collaborative aspects of her early career. You Heartbreaker, You is far more stripped back and singular. This incredible artist making sure that her voice is front and centre:
“The album was forged in the brutal habitat of its creator’s own narrowing attention spans, a topic explored on ‘High Resolution Sadness’ - “I wanna take it all in / I wanna put down the screens,” she screams over a thrashing instrumental. “I’m like everyone. I’m a doom scroller,” she admits. “I get swallowed into the vortex. Some parts of it I like. My Instagram wall is full of comedy and food stuff. Our number one rule was if we’re bored, we delete.”
That manifesto was penned ritually, ahead of Jehnny’s creative pursuits, ‘Don’t bore me’ becoming a mantra of sorts in the studio. “The music knows better than you know, and you have to get really good at listening, paying attention to what the world you’re creating is feeding back to you. You juggle subjectivity with objectivism. It’s a tricky balance. I don’t write songs to fix my own problems. I think songs are conversations. Songs are addressed to the world. It’s like in any conversation: don’t bore me, I don’t like small talk.”
It appears this restless nature extends beyond music too. Keen-eyed observers of Netflix would have spotted Jehnny in ‘Hostage’, a political drama starring Suranne Jones. It marks her first acting work outside her native France (where she featured in 2023’s broadly acclaimed Anatomy Of A Fall); now, having recently done a three week shoot in Brazil, she’s on the cusp of filming another movie back home.
“I try to do both. I’m always happy to sacrifice film for music because music is my art,” she says. While she doesn’t identify many crossovers between the creative acts - she turns down any musician roles offered to her - dialogue from the silver screen often bleeds into her writing. “Even ‘You Heartbreaker, You’ could be a line from a movie. I think that in songs, the more personal, the more people like it. And sometimes it’s true. Writing a song is kind of similar to writing for a character. It’s a perspective.”
This weaving between disciplines recalls another one of her Instagram proverbs - ‘There are many versions of yourself, just make sure they all get the right shoes’. “Well, right now I’m barefoot,” she laughs. “That’s really true though. I used to wear stilettos in Savages. We were afraid of being caught by the fashion police and not taken seriously as musicians because we were women. The only thing I would allow myself would be interesting shoes”.
I will wrap with a couple of reviews. CLASH provided some interesting observations about You Heartbreaker, You. An album that is freeing, cathartic and designed to allow the audience to scream, it is perfect for these times. Rather than it being too heavy or foreboding, instead, You Heartbreaker, You is motivating and energising. It definitely engages all the senses and provokes so many different reactions:
“Jehnny Beth returns with her second solo album, ‘You Heartbreaker, You’, out via Fiction Records. The new album follows on from 2021’s ‘Utopian Ashes’ with Primal Scream frontman Bobby Gillespie, which took listeners through the slow parting of a married couple, as they revel in the loneliness of a failing love. ‘You Heartbreaker, You’ is starkly different.
On the album, Beth says, “We’re living in a dark time, full of drama and barbarous tragedy. It became clear to me that, in these times, we either learn how to scream really well, or we learn how to whisper.” In ‘Broken Rib’, Beth wants us to scream, as she sings, “we learn to breathe with a broken rib,” insinuating that screaming is exposing, but eventually the anger will feel directed and natural, the same way as it is the social norm to whisper politely.
‘Broken Rib’ is followed by ‘No Good For People’. With electronic elements, the track is reminiscent of Nine Inch Nails. Beth was inspired to write the track after re-watching True Detective, the decorated American police drama about tackling internal corruption. On what inspired the track, Beth says, “There’s a scene at the end where the character played by Matthew McConaughey says that he can be hard to live with: ‘I don’t mean to, but I can be…critical. Sometimes I think I’m just not good for people… I wear them down”. It spoke to me because it questions the inability to coexist with others and the delicate balance where the truth can be heartbreaking.”
The following tracks – ‘Obsession’, ‘Out of my Reach’, and ‘I Still Believe’ – are punchy. ‘Out Of My Reach’ has a deeper guitar sound, sewn by Beth’s assertive vocal, stylistically similar to Deftones. ‘I Still Believe’ has a post-punk sound, but from a more powerful stance. The track is brooding and creeps up on you as a listener.
‘Reality’ begins with the sound of glass shattering, capturing immediate attention as well as carrying the album’s theme of feeling disillusioned by the state of the world, lovelessly professing “We want love like it happens in a dream,” showing how we chase romance, despite deeper anger, which could be translated into passion. ‘Reality’ extends into the following track, ‘Stop Me Now’.
Beth sings with full angst, but there is something cathartic about the uneasy sound. Forebodingly accompanied by a creeping guitar sound, she repeatedly sings, “How many years are we going to last?” She then ends the song saying, “Nothing can stop me now.”
This transcends into ‘High Resolution Sadness’ which is paced like a panic attack, driven by a janky, anger-filled drum sound. The track is similar to PJ Harvey’s haunting ‘Down by the Water’ as Beth whispers, “Put down the screens,” and progresses into a slightly unhinged vocal, frequently singing, “I want to feel love.”
The closing track, ‘I See Your Pain’, is noticeably slower and draws more attention to her almost isolated, static-y vocal, accompanied by a quiet but deliberate guitar strum, escalating into a crashing vocal as she sings ‘I See Your Pain’, sometimes sang clear and strongly, other times, closer to the end, sang exorcising and free.
‘You Heartbreaker, You’ is a release to listen to. Despite the industrial and slick sound,the purity in Beth’s voice outshines the sheen that drapes over the album. Beth’s voice might be confronting at first, but over the course of the album the frustration becomes contagious, proving that anger is not something to be frightened by.
7/10”.
I am ending with a review from Kerrang!. I will have to go and see Jehnny Beth play very soon, as she is one of my favourite artists. You Heartbreaker, You is one of the standout albums of this year. One that definitely lodges in the mind. Even if it nine songs and lasts less than half an hour, it does everything it needs to in that time. Other artists can take note of its economy and effectiveness:
“Primal. If you were to boil the energy of Jehnny Beth’s second solo album down to a singular word, that would be it. It’s primal in multiple dimensions – confrontational, sexual, alight with a revolutionary spark – all made possible by an approach that feels proudly organic, unvarnished, even. Whatever guise the ex-Savages vocalist chooses to assume, she is fearless about it.
To start with, we re-encounter Jehnny when her spirit is bruised. Nonetheless, you can sense her grit her teeth and stagger forwards on opener Broken Rib, a tense, discordant beast of a track where her pain is as acute as a shard of glass pressed into the wrist. Later, No Good For People, in which she laments the way ‘I wear you down and you get unhappy’, does harsh maximalism with class, while Obsession pushes that sound further into something more twisted and strange, lending a creeping undertone to her plea of, ‘I don’t know why I’m so girly / I’m desperate to know when we will be together.’ Out Of My Reach is simultaneously dense and straightforward, shifting its feet between wavering, weird verses into a simple yet effective, and no less massive, chorus.
In its second half, things get noisier. Reality sees her move from a purr to a bark and back again in an ode to queerness, sex and polyamory – ‘Did not mean to hurt you when I said / I’d like you and your man in my bed.’ Meanwhile, High Resolution Sadness rattles and rolls in a battle cry for unplugging and living large, and Jehnny’s whisper of ‘Put down the screens’ certainly is a compelling command. Closer I See Your Pain slows down and assumes a moodier, more dramatic tone as she contemplates the blurry line between calling out performative action and demanding moral purity. ‘We want our heroes to be pure / Your heroes to be insecure / Everyone’s so strange,’ she sings.
In a time where it seems everyone wants to make noisier music as an act of defiance against an increasingly cruel world, Jehnny Beth has found a way to stand out. She’s real, she’s raw, and everything here has such a strength of spirit to it that it feels truly alive.
Verdict: 4/5”.
A remarkable album from the divine Jenny Beth, go and check out the stunning You Heartbreaker, You. Following her debut solo album, 2020’s TO LOVE IS TO LIVE, I think that she has delivered her finest work to date. I do wonder where she goes next and what another album might sound like. A seemingly limitless artist, Jehnny Beth could do a complete left-turn. However, on this gem of an album, she provides something truly special. An album that…
EVERYONE needs to experience.