Album Review: Hana Vu - Romanticism

Are we gonna make it? ‘Cause I have to. I don’t wanna be here—but I do.

“I need you to stay alive for forever.” My best friend told me that in a voice note, once, not even two years ago. It, I would soon find, was not the only time she would say this to me, or would tell me something very similar, but this—this was the first time, which is, I think, why, at least in part, something I return to often, as, like, a moment of importance.

And there is, of course, a hyperbolic nature to the statement—or the ask. And she had said it with a conviction, and an earnestness, and an urgency. It is the kind of thing you say to someone and in saying it, you hope that they both hear you, and understand how seriously you mean it—that the real sentiments get through.

And the thing is that, even though I can still hear the cadence of her voice, in my mind, telling me she did, in fact, need me to stay alive for forever, what I can not remember is why she had said it—like, what the rest of the context of the voice note, or at least this part of the conversation we had been having, had been about. 

Though, given that it is a statement inherently adjacent to the well documented, flimsy relationship I have with my own mortality, I have a kind of vague idea of why she had said it when she did, and why it was imperative I hear it. 

And why it was imperative that I understood. 

“I need you to stay alive for forever,” my best friend told me in a voice note, once, not even two years ago, and so it is her that I find myself on the phone with, around a year later, first apologizing for being someone who, more often than I would care to admit to, requires so much emotional management from the people I love and who, despite how difficult I make it for them, love me in return. 

Apologizing, while also trying to explain as delicately and tactfully as I could, or, at least, in a way that would not cause immediate alarm—but did, anyway, how I had been feeling, or, rather, what I had been feeling, for such a large portion of the day.

Are we gonna make it? ‘Cause I have to.

I don’t wanna be here—but I do.

And, sometimes it does feel, especially over the last year, like I am telling, or re-telling, the same story, or a slight variant of a story I have already shared too many times.

Or that I, perhaps because of a lack of imagination, or any real creativity, continue to write myself, and a few specific details about myself, into things where they, maybe, do not belong in the first place, as an attempt, and a potentially ill-advised one at that, to construct a compelling narrative that creates a convergence, or bridges a gap, if you will. 

“I need you to stay alive for forever,” my best friend told me in a voice note once.

“Are we gonna make it? ‘Cause I have to,” Hana Vu sings, with a little bit of a drawl in her voice, pulling and twisting the words so they fall into just the right place in the shimmery, crisp, and ultimately soaring and bombastic “Hammer.” 

“I don’t wanna be here—but I do.”

*

And I have, in the past, found that I often will say sometimes the internet moves so much faster than I would like it to. It happens most, at least for me, and perhaps for you as well, if you are someone who is, like me, chronically online, and you are trying to recall where, or how, or from whom, you were introduced to something.

For me, and perhaps for you as well, I find it is almost always with regards to how I first heard about a book I became interested in reading, or an artist, or band, that I wished to listen to. 

Who’s recommendation was it? Did I see something about it on Twitter or Instagram? Was it from a review I read somewhere? Was it a headline, or a blurb that caught my attention?

The internet moves so much faster than I would like it to, and in trying to recall how I may have heard about Romanticism, the second full-length album from Hanna Vu, I realize I am unable to do so with any accuracy or confidence. 

Vu, at least when I was first siting down with Romanticism, was a new artist to me—or to my ears, rather, but what I quickly realized is that I had been aware of her debut full-length effort, Public Storage, released near the end of 2021, because I recognized the album’s startling cover art: a close-up, rather graphic and unsettling image of the inside of wide open mouth.

I remember seeing this cover image often, as well as the blown-out, yellow-tinted version of it from the album’s companion EP, Parking Lot, in various places on the internet. And based on the intensity of that image alone—I did not even know the kind of music Vu made or really connect an album title or artist name to that image—it erroneously kept me at arm’s length in terms of genuine interest or curiosity.

An album with this kind of cover art, I thought at the time, is just something that is certainly not for me.

The cover art to Romanticism is, I think, both just as intense, and not, in comparison to what graces the front of Public Storage—here, it is a haunting photographic recreation of an Artemisia Gentileschi painting, with Vu is playing the role of someone who is about to be beheaded.

There are the subtle ways that the cover art to an album should not exactly match the kind of music that has been recorded and is now being presented to the listener, but it should be, as much as it can be, representative of it. And, I mean, there is a very apparent off-putting intensity to the image that appears on the front of Public Storage, and it does, if you do not know anything else about the album itself or Vu as an artist, imply an intensity and a kind of confrontational nature to the music she is making.

And I suppose there is something funny—not an irony, really, but a kind of smirking, or wink to the listener, that at least in terms of the instrumentation, and Vu’s songwriting, the music itself is not very confrontational at all. 

It can be, and often is, enormous in scope, but it never keeps the listener at arm’s length that I had, a number of years ago, mistakenly thought it would. It is not angry, or aggressive, or unsettling. Not really. Musically, Vu leans wholeheartedly into a kind of guitar-driven, power pop sound—heavy on a kind of infectiousness and a shimmery sound, and even heavier on the soaring hooks created within the chorus, which, once you know that, creates such a sharp, and certainly intentional, contrast between the album’s aesthetic, and the album’s sound. 

The intensity, I suppose, for Vu—specifically on Romanticism, comes in the form of her lyricism, which, across the album’s 12 tracks, is admirable in just how unflinching and frank it is, as she approaches her the burdens of the human condition that come with time and age, and her (often poor) mental health, doing so with a boisterous poignancy and grace.

*

I’m sorry about the way I am.

Sometimes it does feel, especially over the last year, maybe even longer, like I am telling, or re-telling, the same story. Or, a slight variant of a story I have shared to many times already. Or, that I, perhaps because of a lack of imagination or any real creativity in writing, continue to put my fingers to the keyboard and insert myself and a few specific details about myself into things where they, maybe, do not belong in the first places s an attempt and a potentially ill-advised on a t that, to construct a compelling narrative that, and this is often a bit of a stretch, or a reach, on my part, creates a convergence, or works to bridge a gap, if you will.

And I am remiss to say that, for the last five years, give or take, I have been dealing with “writer’s block,” because that is not true. Not really. Because I write. Often. And the things that I do write have, over that period of time, grown in their word count, and in their ambition.

But that, I think, has been out of a necessity. Because even though it is not true, it is also true—that I, over roughly the last five years, have been dealing with a kind of “writer’s block.”

And if you will allow me to break the fourth wall, at this point, perhaps a little earlier than usual when I do request permission to do so, I will try, as I may, though I feel like I am not in a place to make any guarantees, not to get too far into the weeds in my explanation here. 

Because, for a number of years, I had an outlet for what I began, for lack of anything else to call it, “non-music” writing—short personal essays, often observational, with the unspoken expectation or hope from the editor I was working with, that they would be funny. Sort of. 

I was offered a monthly “back page”column for an arts and entertainment publication—each issue was based around a loose theme with its cover stories, and when I began contributing, I tried (and I think for nearly every issue I wrote for) to write something that—and sometimes it was a challenge, or I took a number of liberties—could be connected to that theme.

After writing for the publication for roughly three and a half years, the editor who had offered me the opportunity, and who had worked with me each month, was abruptly laid off from the parent publishing company. I, out of a sense of loyalty, made the decision I would no longer be contributing to the publication, and instead, began crafting a new column for the fledgling website my editor would launch shortly after his departure. 

Without the loose confines of a monthly theme to write around, and without the hard boundary of column inches dictating the word count, I had a lot more freedom with what I chose to write about, and I would like to think that, at least near the end of 2017, and into 2018, I hit a stride with developing the voice that I would use, later on, in music about writing. 

And then, much later, writing myself into places where I potentially did not belong. 

And I tell you all of that to tell you this—things fall apart. 

The fledgling website came to a confusing, frustrating, and unceremonious end in the late autumn of 2018, and the year itself came to an end with the feeling of uncertainty, for me, and what to do without this other outlet, independent of my own, where I was able to write more personal reflections or observations that were not rooted in music analysis or criticism.

Without the deadlines, and working with an editor, and honestly, the prestige or little boost that comes from having your work featured elsewhere, I creatively limped into the new year and, as I was able, in between music writing, and launching a podcast, I continued to work on “non-music” writing for the first half of 2019, selecting a handful of more personal ideas to try to develop in to essays, publishing them as I was able. 

I didn’t lose interest. Not in the slightest. And it certainly wasn’t unsustainable, exactly. But it also, ultimately, was not as sustainable, or as effortless, as I thought it might be to find a way to do both—to write about music, subjectively, and thoughtfully, and at times a little personally, but save most of that kind of introspection for something else.

The last personal essay that I successfully wrote to completion and published on my own was in October of 2020—a 20th-anniversary reflection on a high school prank that ended in my arrest. And it was a piece that I felt like I needed to write, potentially out of an obligation more than anything else. And I say that I wrote “to completion and published” because over the last two years, certainly, there have been countless attempts to write other things.

Attempts to write something, that is completed, and then submitted with a heart full of hope and ambition, to competitions or open calls for submissions in various literary magazines. 

Attempts to write something that, once reaching a certain word count, or page number, begins to stall out until it becomes another document, gathering dust, on my laptop. 

And I have been remiss to say that for the last five years, give or take, I have been dealing with a kind of “writer’s block,” because that is simply not true. Not really. Because I do write. Often. And if you will allow me to break the fourth wall again and address you, the reader, once again, the things that I have written, over the last four years specifically, have continued to grow in word count and in ambition. 

And maybe I did subconsciously understand what I was doing by, inevitably, writing myself, and specific things about myself, into everything, as I was able, and that it was something that happened out of necessity. I can see that now. 

It sometimes feels like, especially over the last year, I am telling or re-telling the same story, or at the very least, a slight variant of a story that I have already shared too many times. Or that I, perhaps because of a lack of imagination and any real creativity, continue to write myself into places where I, maybe, do not belong in the first place as an ill-advised way to construct a compelling narrative that creates a convergence.

The convergence, or this intersection, coming in the space that forms between the music that I listen to, and the thoughtful, personal kind of reflections I wish to write. 

And I tell you all of that to tell you this—I listen to a lot of music. Some of it is simply for leisure, or out of curiosity, and is never really under consideration to be written bout. Some of it I would love to sit down with, and really give the time, and effort, and thought needed to put something together about—the thought is there, certainly, but the time and effort are often harder to come by. And there are the albums, and artists, that I know I am going to, without question, write about. 

I listen to a lot of music—a lot of different genres. Some of it easier to write about, or lends itself better to a reflection. Some of it, I realize that it is not my lived experience, and I ultimately do not feel qualified to sit down and analyze. 

I listen to a lot of music and I find that, more often than not, I am attracted to the melancholic. The sad. The depressing. Because I see the reflection—regularly unflattering—of myself in what I hear.

“I’m sorry about the way I am,” Hana Vu sings, her voice rising high above the oscillating synthesizer tones of “Look Alive,” the startling, gorgeous, and haunting opening track on Romanticism. 

“There’s no song in my heart like I thought there was when I was young, and I fell apart,” she continues, breathlessly, allowing the words to rise, fall, and tumble out onto the churning, shimmering sounds below her. “There’s no air in my lungs ‘cause my breath has changed. And now I’m a ghost of who I have been.”

And it was those lyrics, specifically, during my first listen of Romanticism, when I was still figuring out who Hana Vu was, and what I might be in for with the album, that did stop me in my tracks. Romanticism is not a difficult album—musically, it is very accessible from nearly top to bottom. 

However. It is an album that does ultimately make a demand of us, as listeners.

Because regardless of how uncomfortable it might make us, or how challenging it might be, Vu, with Romanticism, does not only ask but demands that we do confront, and reconcile, if we can, with the more unflattering parts of ourselves that we see when the album reflects them back at us.

*

I am hesitant to refer to Romanticism as a concept album, but it is a tightly knit cycle, or collection, of songs—seemingly labored over in the writing process, that are connected through a number of recurring ideas, or themes. And in the press materials for the album, Vu is quick to explain what the title means, to her certainly, but also within the context of these songs.

“Being a romantic is different from being a romanticist,” she states, with the press release for the album, written by Kyle Lucia Wu, author of Win Me Something, adding the songs “luxuriate in an intensified, distilled picture of the rush of feelings that follows adolescence.”

“The nexus of the album,” Vu continues. “Is indulging in these sad feelings—indulging in the senses.”

And sadness, of course, is one of the ideas, or themes, that is at the core of Romanticism—certainly one of the things that drew me to the album and, held my attention, and resonated with me, during my first listen, but it is the way that Vu presents the sadness, among other emotions, that makes the album so compelling from beginning to end, nearly always finding the balance in the juxtaposition between often buoyant, or writhing arrangements and instrumentation—skittering between guitar-driven power pop, and a robust, very specific kind of “indie rock” sound, and the existential questioning and internal dread found within her lyricism.

Sadness, of course, is one of the ideas, or themes, that is at the core of the album, as is the idea of getting older—Vu, herself, is now in her mid-20s, though she was writing the material for Romanticism, as you may have surmised by the title of the album’s jaw-dropping fourth track, when she was 22, which is a stark, gorgeous reflection on the desensitization of experiencing things for the first time. 

“You get wiser—I feel quite wiser,” she explained about the song in an interview with The Line of Best Fit. “But less fervent. Less hopeful…I was paralyzed by grief and memories of being 22,” she continues. “All at once, a baby and the oldest I’ve ever been.”

The feelings that I have about aging, or time, or about mortality, and certainly the flimsy relationship I have with it, have evolved. Because there was certainly a time—in my early 20s, when the idea of “getting older,” and certainly feeling order, felt much more visceral to me than it does now, as I am, currently, on the cusp of turning 41—an unremarkable age, or year, to arrive at, following what is deemed by many to be a milestone age, or year, that I, at times, was confident I would not make it to.

There is the departure of what is, more or less, adolescence, heading toward something else—much larger, and more challenging, and in the intersection, having misgivings about both. 

Less fervent. Less hopeful. 

Paralyzed by grief and memories. 

And, I mean, those are experiences, at least for me, and perhaps for you as well, that continue well beyond your 20s, and your 30s.

You become the ghost of who you have been.

*

Structurally, I am remiss to say that Romanticism is front-loaded with its most emotionally charged, and, therefore, at least to me, most genuinely interesting and resonant material, but Vu does truly go a lot deeper, and confess a lot more about herself, and the tumultuous emotions that course throughout the album on its first side, while allowing for just the slightest bit of resolve within the narratives as the second half unfolds.

I am also remiss, as much as I can be, when writing about music analytically, to draw comparisons, or use other artists as a point of reference. I understand why, in a lot of “music journalism,” it is done, usually out of ease to relay something to the reader, but it also, in a number of cases, at least to me, feels a little lazy, or if anything else, is diminutive towards the subject you are writing about, and not allowing the artist, or the album, to truly stand on their own.

In its relatively positive, albeit brief and breezy review of the album, Pitchfork contributor Evan Rytlewski cannot help himself from attempting to draw what I think are complimentary comparisons to other, somewhat similarly minded (and sounding) artists, though in his candor, it does come off as more backhanded, or if anything, more than a little dismissive of Vu’s songwriting and aesthetic, referring to the album as a compliment to the “stately gloom of Mitski, the TikTok sadness of Boygenius, and the alt-rock ear candy of Olivia Rodrigo,” then adding Vu’s music is “unmistakably a product of this moment.”

And, yes, sure you could argue that there are moments on Romanticism where Vu takes the kind of guitar-driven power pop that Olivia Rodrigo has incorporated into a bulk of her sound thus far, but she runs with it, making it darker, edgier, and allows it to soar higher while still holding onto a kind of pop-songwriting sensibility; and sure, you could argue that, in her lyricism, Vu expands upon the melancholy woven into the songwriting of Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker, and Lucy Dacus, and doesn’t just make things “sadder,” exactly—she is much more outward and bold in her expressions of emotion.

And though Vu more than likely shares fans, or listeners, with the aforementioned artists, and there are similarities, sure, I would contend that Vu, and Romanticism, are wholly unique for myriad reasons, and that while seamlessly blurring the edges between a heavier, or noisier sound, with music that is inherently “pop” in how it is built is not a new thing at all, there is a real originality to how Vu handles that kind of aesthetic, and handles herself within the space that she’s creating. 

Romanticism’s third track, “Alone,” is not the first place on the album where we get the impression that Vu is both interested and very capable of crafting songs that will ascend to towering heights—“Hammer,” for as dark as it is lyrically, musically, it is the moment when the album really kicks itself into gear, with all the elements quickly tumbling together to create something can surprisingly be jubilant or bombastic in sound.

“Alone,” though, is where Vu perhaps lets a song climb the highest—she never lets the ambitiousness or the explosive, gargantuan nature of the song’s structure and sound, get away from her though, as she and her producer, Jackson Phillips, who also serves as a co-writer and her singular bandmate on the record, continue to put in the work, allowing the song to briskly move along with a kind of loose, swaying ease—the guitars are strummed with enthusiasm, yes, but there is also a dreamy quality to them, before it is quickly built up to the point where it bursts and tumbles right back down. 

There are a handful of moments on Romanticism that fall into a very specific style of music that has more to do with true aesthetic than actual genre, which is what I call “sad but willing to dance.” Because in how swift and steady the rhythm is, with a chugging, rolling bass line and crisp percussion, and just how gigantic and at times searing it becomes, it does compel you to move—in the way that, like, one is able to dance with inhibitions to guitar-driven music such as this. The contrast of that, and what makes Romanticism such a razor-sharp, intelligent album, is how bleak or desolate Vu’s lyrics are. 

“Alone” is by no means the darkest song on the album, nor does it contain any of her bleakest phrase turns, but it is impressive how shimmery, or how blindingly bright the music can be that is pounding out behind her, when she’s singing, and often howling, with such a terrible, desperate sense of urgency.

“Though I cry, I won’t ask you to belong with me, and now you won’t,” she confesses in the first verse. Then, later, before the chorus: “I know the world’s a stage—they’re watching me. And I’m just so ashamed I ended up alone.”

Vu takes things to an even bleaker, and much more vivid place in the second verse. “Every night, there’s a vacancy between everything and I,” she explains. “And though I try, I’m still underground. And I can’t make a sound to save my life.”

And, it is not that, as Romanticism continues that, the songs become inherently less “sad”—it is within the second half that there are small moments of what I would consider to be optimism or even hope, though nearly always effacing in how they arrive. And musically, the album’s arranging and tempos are still very much “willing to dance,” with Vu leaning harder and harder into a kind of style of music that, and I do not mean this to be dismissive at all, because it is rather effective, I call “public radio ready,” simply just in terms of its infectiousness and vigor.

Shortly after the second side of the album begins, Vu brings us into the pulsating and ascendant “Airplane,” which moves with such a brisk, anthemic fervor—and with its thick, undulating bass line and the sharp, precise, unrelenting way that rhythm is tapped out against the hi-hat cymbal, it is indicative of a certain kind of indie rock song, of a specific time, or era, that found success on public radio—I’m thinking of the kind of soaring grandeur that a song like “Sweet Disposition,” by The Temper Trap, manages to conjure within mere seconds of its beginning. 

“Airplane,” in its arranging, is surprisingly beautiful, as it shifts between this kind of breathlessness, and these moments, as it arrives at the chorus, of a sweeping, or swooshing, punctuated theatricality—both of which are impressive and effective in making the song what it is. 

Like she does throughout Romanticism, Vu’s lyrics, even when they are not as dark, or bleak in their reflections, are still poignant, and she does an impeccable job of folding that poignancy into the fabric of a song’s infectiousness—luring the listener in and allowing them to temporarily lose themselves in a vocal melody, or in the way, in the example of a song like “Airplane,” each element quickly spirals together to create something that isn’t overwhelming but is quite powerful—all of which serves as the slightest distraction from the conceit of the song. 

The more noticeable slivers of optimism or hope do arrive near the end of Romanticism, or are at least implied—and even with the unrelenting and anthemic quality of its arranging, “Airplane,” lyrically, is very connected to a number of the ideas introduced within the first half of the album, but are just expressed in ways that are not as dark.

“I had a brand-new start, but I think it’s over now,” Vu pines in the first verse. “Do you remember getting older? Can you tell me what it’s about? And at the end of endless summer, got no plans to hang around,” she continues, musing on the inevitability of time, age, and reluctant acceptance.

“Stop the car—oh, I’m nervous it’s broken,” she bellows as the music swells, later, in the second chorus. “Please don’t drive away—I don’t know where to go yet. Count your blessings; I’d forgotten where I’d written them down. If you find it, don’t let them run out.”

Then, in the final chorus, she comes face to face, or at least a little closer, to the uncertainty she has been attempting to evade. “Change the song; I think I’ve heard it before, and I don’t feel the same as I did when it’s over. Stop the presses—I forgot what I’d written about, and I don’t have the will yet to change it.”

*

And for as torrential, and as gigantic, as Romanticism can often be, there is also a delicate nature to portions of the album—it, you could say, begins gently with the swirling, twinkling “Look Alive,” and the album does wind down to a place that is a little more restrained, musically, on the penultimate, tender “I Draw A Heart.”

A little slower, and a little more reserved in its tone and melody, “I Draw A Heart” begins with intricate layers of strummed, dreamy-sounding guitars, and the faintest of twinkly keyboard sounds, delicately dropping down on the top of it, and being somewhat swallowed up within the ever moving texture underneath. All of this does grow in intensity, just slightly, as the song continues, but without any percussion, there is a floating sensation created—also exemplified by the way Vu’s voice coasts along, and then swoons ever so slightly.

There is, of course, beauty wherever you wish to look for it, or are able to find it, and certainly, there are a number of moments of subjective beauty across the board on Romanticism, but and maybe the title certainly helps, but “I Draw A Heart” is the most objective in its gorgeousness, as well as in the kind of romanticism that one thinks of when they consider that word, or that state.

Not sad, exactly, in its lyrics, but certainly melancholic in how it arrives, as well as a terrible sense of longing—one of the few places where that kind of yearning for another individual, rather than just at time, or a place, is presented. “I draw a heart onto your pocket—spend it like a dollar,” Vu muses before asking, “How much is it worth to you?”

“I’ll stay—sing you happy birthday. I’ll love you when it’s over,” she continues, then delivering one of the most impressive, evocative phrase turns on the album. “I love you like the last day of school.”

Often, among the things that I write about, or write into a piece, and potentially overuse, I talk about the difference, and where there is overlap, between a “love song” and a “song about love.” Because, yes, there are times when the two can be the same, but they are, at their core, two different things. And, despite the more romantic or saccharine nature of their titles, both “I Draw A Heart,” as well as the shattering closing track, “Love,” neither are “love songs,” really but rather songs that are about love, and all of the things that come along with it. Good and bad.

Beginning quietly, and strummed out pensively on the guitar, “Love” is built in such a way that you do kind of know that something is coming. That something does come in the form of the chorus—it’s not aggressive in how loud it is, but with the pummeling behind the drum kit and the cacophony of guitar chords, distended and huge, it is, unmistakably, the most raucous or explosive moment on Romanticism, simply in for the way it startles and rattles, and makes it impossible for you to turn away from the sheer beauty found within the torrent of noise.

And in that contrast of quiet and loud, there is a built-in sense of tension and release—which does set an appropriate tone for the self-deprecation and the urgent pleadings of Vu’s writing. Again—there is a difference between a “love song,” and a song that is about love, and everything that comes with it. Good and bad. And the bad here, or at least what is alluded to, is a kind of disconnection and a terrible desperation to remedy.

“I don’t ever know what to say when I’m looking at you and you’re looking away—you know every look on my face,” she begins. “Well, I guess I can’t hide as much as I want to.”

“I guess this is love,” Vu howls, her voice layered and rising over the sound of the song exploding around her. “I just want you to stay. You know I hate giving up,” she continues. “I guess it’s just me. Please don’t leave me alone—you know I can’t let you be.”

And for as glossy, or shimmery, and as jittery, or bombastic as much of the arranging on Romanticism can be—it, again, is firmly rooted in a kind of exuberant guitar-driven power pop sound that does really work, there is a truly human, or personal element to it, which is created and sustained by Vu’s writing. 

The end of the album, despite the kind of lighter thematic tone in the final two songs, does not provide any answers to the larger, more challenging questions or thematic elements of Romanticism, and “Love” concludes with one of the most humanized, identifiable lyrics on the album. 

“I guess this is love. I don’t know what to say—I don’t know how to stop.”

*

And, oh, it doesn’t hurt to be alive.

And, here’s the thing about Romanticism, or at least my experience with the album—it’s that Vu had me. From the moment it began. Like, before “Look Alive” had even finished, I was transfixed by her—her voice, certainly, and her lyricism as well, and the enormity that the songs themselves, in their arranging and structure, swing for and rarely if ever miss. And having my attention, what I came to understand quickly was relentlessly emotional the album’s first side was—specifically, like, the first four songs. She just doesn’t let up. 

And even if you are wishing for a break, or a little breathing room, after the slow motion beauty and anguish of “22,” you get it slightly in the rollicking, kind of playful rhythm of “Care,” but with regards to the writing, Vu pulls herself, and us as listeners, to an even darker and more self-deprecating place than previously explored in the earliest portions of the album.

And, again, part of the charm, throughout the album, is Vu’s abilities, seemingly with ease but certainly there is a laborious nature to it that we do not see, or hear, to contrast the bleakness of her lyrical content, with such up-beat, or at least energetic arrangements. And “Care” is no exception—there is a kind of downcast, or melancholic feeling to the song as a whole, but there is something honestly jaunty about the way it all sounds, as she bends and stretches her voice, and the vocal melody, over that jauntiness, or playfulness.

The first word that did come to mind with a song like “Care,” and still does come to mind, at least in terms of how it sounds, or arrives within the album, is a bittersweet kind of nostalgia—like something adjacent to what you might hear soundtracking a poignant scene in a 1990s teen movie, adjacent to a more “alternative rock” kind of sound.

The deprecation, and bleak outlook begins within the opening line of “Care”—“I’m waking up to the sun and I find it all too much,” she begins, her voice strong and booming against the propulsion of the music below. “Here we go—another day, another name I can’t bring up.”

“Hold me now, when I open my mouth, it just screams ‘Why,’” Vu continues in the second verse. “And if you think I forgot, I wish that could be me who doesn’t care.”

And there is a sense of heartbreak, or at least the faintest depiction of a romance that has ended, in some of the lyrics to “Care,” but the further along Vu takes us within the song, it becomes about a lot more than just that. 

“L.A.’s just a place you can afford stuff you don’t need, and didn’t before,” Vu sneers in the song’s bridge. “It’s okay that no one cares about you, and no one cares about me,” she continues. “What is care anyway? I don’t know. Who’s to say.”

As “Care” heads toward its conclusion, there is a surprising snark and bitterness in Vu’s observations, which is something that isn’t present in a lot of the other writing on Romanticism. “The more I think about it now,” she confesses. “I’m just a book you throw away ‘cause you don’t know what I’m about.”

“Don’t pick up the phone—I only talk to fill the air,” she howls in the final moments as the music continues to swell around her. “If you can hear me in a few words, I’ll just sing my empty prayer. There’s no going home, because there’s nobody there. I’m running from this world to the next one until I can find someone who cares—I hope you remember.”

And arriving after the halfway point, after the beginning of side two, the song “Dreams” is a lot less unrelenting in the way it writhes and undulates—but with its slower, steady rhythm, and a thick, rolling bass groove, it does, also, find itself musically leaning into that kind of “said, but willing to dance” variant of indie rock that public radio stations, at least in the late 2000s and into the early 2010s adored adding to their playlists. Musically, “Dreams” may not be one of the more genuinely interesting, or one that is vying for your attention the way some other songs or moments within songs do on Romanticism, but lyrically, Vu is working with a lot that does really linger, well after the song is over.

Focusing on a kind of best-case hopefulness, “Dreams” lyrically finds Vu rattling off a list of increasingly nice or heartwarming things, leading up to one that, at least for me, and potentially for you as well, resonated deeply. 

Vu sings the lyrics like a mantra, or an incantation, and in doing so, coupled with the relatively restrained instrumentation, she crafts something surprisingly hypnotic. “Every night is beautiful,” she begins. “Every song’s your favorite one. All you do is smile and never cry. And love doesn’t fade away, and all your friends stay the same. And everyone you love never dies.”

These sentiments do quickly reveal the more emotionally charged dreams laid out in the song—“It’s easy to believe in dreams,” Vu explains. “It’s easy, like I love my friend. It’s easy like a ‘Buy Again,’” she continues, before, just a few lines later, getting to one of the lines that, even with the simplicity with what it wishes for, and the kind of unabashed optimism or hope that it holds, there is an enormous behind of weight behind it. 

“And, oh, it doesn’t hurt to be alive.”

*

A few years ago—probably within what I was writing near the end of 2021, I found that I was, more and more, looking for where two things collided. And, maybe, because it was for the sake of what I was writing and I, maybe, wished for it to be a little more dramatic or seem a little more heightened than it perhaps needed to be, that some of these collisions were a bit of a stretch, or a reach, on my part. And that I went looking for something that was simply not there to begin with.

I started to think about certain albums, or at least songs within an album, that I was spending time with, in terms of a convergence of two things, with something very specific and of genuine interest to me, occurring in the middle of that convergence—where the two things slowly started to overlap.

And, I mean, Romanticism as an album is certainly a place of intersectionality—the place where soaring pop hooks with a little bit of an edge overlap with inward, self-deprecating, thoughtful lyricism. 

It sometimes feels like, especially one the last year, I am telling, or re-telling the same story, for at the very least, a slight variant of a story that I have already shared too many times. Or that I, perhaps because of a lack of imagination or any real creativity, continue to write myself into places where I, maybe, do not belong in the first place as an ill-advised way to construct a compelling narrative. A narrative that creates a convergence. The convergence or a kind of intersection, coming in the space that forms between the music I listen to, and the thoughtful, personal kind of reflections I wish to write. 

Or write more of.

There is a reason, over the last few years, more and more, that I only really wish to write about albums that I genuinely like, but more than that, can find a way into, and really form a connection with. 

I listen to a lot of music, in a variety of genres but more often than not I am drawn, over and over again, to the melancholic. The sad. The depressing. And it’s because of that connection. The way in. I see the reflection, which is almost always unflattering, of myself in what I hear. 

“I need you to stay alive for forever,” my best friend told me in a voice note, once, not even two years ago, and so it is her that I find myself on the phone with, around a year later, first apologizing for being someone who, more often than I would care to admit to, requires so much emotional management from the people I love and who, despite how difficult I make it for them, love me in return.

Apologizing, while also trying to explain as delicately and tactfully as I could, or, at least, in a way that would not cause immediate alarm—but did, anyway, how I had been feeling, or, rather, what I had been feeling, for such a large portion of the day.

“I’m sorry about the way I am,” Hana Vu sings, her voice rising high above the oscillating synthesizer tones of “Look Alive,” the startling, gorgeous, and haunting opening track on Romanticism. 

Then, just a song later, on “Hammer,” “Are we gonna make it? ‘Cause I have to. I don’t wanna be here—but I do.”

Sorry about the way I am.

I don’t wanna be here. But I do.

*

I’m a ghost of who I have been.

Here’s the thing about Romanticism. Or, at least, my experience with the album. Vu had me. From, like, the moment it began. Even before “Look Alive,” the album’s swirling, moody, dazzling opening statement had finished. I was transfixed. By her voice, yes, certainly. And her writing—my god, her lyricism. And by the enormity of the songs themselves—their arranging and structure. How high she swings and rarely, if ever, misses. 

I am a ghost of who I have been.

Even though I took issue with the review of Romanticism featured on Pitchfork, around the time of the album’s release, something that was helpful was the technical term, or description, for Vu’s vocal range. Her voice, which, as “Look Alive” gets underway, is the thing that I found startling, and the thing that held my attention until the very last moment, is wholly unique—I am not aware of a lot of other artists, in any genre, who have this kind of depth and range in their voice. 

And honestly, “depth” and “range” really undersell just how robust and otherworldly, at times, Vu sounds on this record.

Vu is, apparently, a “contralto,” which means her range is the lowest for the female voice, and it, according to the Wikipedia entry on this specific singing voice, is quite rare.

“Look Alive,” as the album’s opening track, does kind of slowly ease you into the world of the album—operating without any percussion, there is an abstract tempo buried in the layers of swirling keyboards that Vu is swimming through. Musically, it is by no means indicative of the things to come on Romanticism, so if anything, its aesthetic makes it more of a prologue to the songs that follow, with Vu’s lyricism serving as a thesis statement in advance of the depths she intends to take us when the album gets underway.

Opening quietly, at first, the surge and rush of “Look Alive” comes rippling in as Vu opens her mouth and belts out the first few words, with synthesizer tones, and patterns, that are not working in opposition to one another, but are not always exactly working in tandem, slowly oscillate around her voice, creating a kind of whirlpool that surrounds the projection of her voice—with the icier, and at times ominous tones from the keyboards contrasted against the subtle, haunting string accompaniment that slides in during the second verse.

And, it can be a lot. I mean. It is a lot. Sounds and tones that are circling one another, which gives the song a real sense of drifting, or floating—but where are you drifting to? You are, ultimately, held in one place, or suspended in this moment with Vu. And it is her voice, you see. It’s a lot. It’s enormous and low and it sounds like she is singing from as far down into herself as she possibly can with the kind of depth that she has, and how wide of a range she casts.

Taking what seems like an enormous breath before the opening line, she does belt out the titular phrase first, before deliberately crafting a vague, eerie portrait of someone who is, ultimately, not doing well—the version of her that, however exaggerated or romanticized for the album, is present in nearly every song, and the version of her that is rather easy to identify with, or recognize parts of yourself in. 

“Look alive,” Vu begins. “I think we’re going out tonight. I think I might have lost my right, some time ago.”

“Hoping on,” she continues, and again, taking these huge breaths and then letting her voice just swing out into the subtlest rhythm that is formed within the instrumentation. “I think I’ve got a lot to learn. I think I might have lost someone, some time ago.”

Later, in the second verse, while the music continues to stir dramatically around her, she turns the lyricism further inward through much more self-effacing lens. “Moving on,” she begins after the chorus. “I wish I had some time to kill. I’m sorry ‘bout the way I feel—I’ll move along” she continues, which is the line she amends slightly soon after. 

The biggest swings she takes though, or the way she lets her impressive voice take command, in “Look Alive” comes in the sweeping, give and take of the chorus. The music underneath her does not differ, but rather, it is her vocal delivery—a breathless kind of build up, heading toward a small but cathartic release and understanding, sung in a little faster of a melody, giving it the sense of urgency, and of exhaustion, that it requires.

“There’s no song in my heart like I thought there was when I was young and I fell apart,” Vu sings, pushing her voice out to the very last syllable. “There’s no air in my lungs, ‘cause my breath has changed and now I’m a ghost of who I have been.”

I’m sorry about the way I am.

I am a ghost of who I have been.

*

I don’t wanna be here—but I do.

In a voice note that my best friend sent to me less than two years ago, she told me with a tone in her voice that did, truly, convey just how sincere she was, that she needed me to stay alive for forever. 

And so it is her, that I find myself on the phone with, around a year later, first apologizing for being someone who, more often than I care to admit to, requires so much emotional management from the people I love and who, despite how difficult I make it for them, regularly, every day, honestly, love me in return.

I’m sorry ‘bout the way I am.

Apologizing and trying to also explain as delicately and as tactfully as I could or at least in a way that would not cause immediate alarm—but did, anyway, how I had been feeling, or rather, what I had been feeling, for such a large portion of the day.

What I had been feeling. For a number of years. And struggled for many of them to understand, or find the right way to articulate it. 

I don’t wanna be here. But I do.

If “Look Alive,” the absolutely stunning, and attention grabbing opening track, is an introduction of sorts to the larger ideas presented within the album, the real nature of Romanticism, as a whole, at least sonically sure, but also lyrically, is presented, or revealed in full, on the blistering, stark “Hammer,” which is where Vu does share the real depth of her lyricism in terms of the dark places within that she wishes to bring us down into. 

Opening with the strong, quickly paced, melodic strum of the acoustic guitar, the crisp, and steady beat from the drum kit, as well as a very subtle, but surging bass line, arrive right on cue, as Vu sings the opening line. “It’s been a long day—take off your shoes,” she demands. “It’s been a hard year,” she continues. “I’m talking to you.”

Are we gonna make it? ‘Cause I have to.

I don’t wanna be here—but I do.

A secondary, lighter, or bouncier in tone, acoustic guitar finds its way into the mix shortly before the long, intense build-up to the song’s chorus, where the snarling, distended sounds of the electric guitars tear through underneath. 

“I called the doctor,” Vu begins, in the increasingly more urgent and manic build-up. “And he said there’s nothing wrong. And I called the pastor, and he said that love is strong,” she continues. “And there is no answer, but I want one anyway. And I swing the hammer just as hard as I can take.”

The chorus itself is an exhalation of sorts, done so out of frustration, and exhaustion, mostly with, seemingly, herself.

“And I run away, ‘cause I ruined mine. And I fall asleep ‘cause I get so tired,” Vu explains. “And it’s hard to say what the trouble is. I’ll run away ’til it’s all behind.”

“Hammer,” structurally, hinges on the build-up leading to the chorus, and then the way that the percussion drops out, temporarily, for two lines, before it kicks back in dramatically, to really emphasize the point of the final two—this technique, of creating these small little moments of tension and release, is something that happens again right away when this section of the song kind of resets itself, and the build-up begins again, leading up to enormous burst before the end.

Though, in the second run through, Vu amends the lyrics slightly, to indicate more of the severity of the situation. 

“I called the doctor, and I said my heart is wrong,” she bellows. “And I called the pastor, and I said I can’t go on. And there is no answer. And I just can’t be saved. And I swing the hammer just as hard the other way.”

It’s hard to say what the trouble is.

I don’t wanna be here—but I do.

And she does it with great skill throughout Romanticism, but “Hammer,” placed so early within the album’s sequencing, is the first place where we here Vu’s preternatural ability to create sly, infectious guitar-driven pop music, doing so as a means to disguise the inherent darkness she explores in her writing. It is stunning really—how she does this, and makes it sound so effortless, and it is something that continues to impress every time it happens, as she further takes us deeper into the world of the album. 

And for as impressive as the song, and the way it is executed it, as a whole, the unflinching nature of her words, and the full-formed, vivid narrative she creates with just, honestly, some skeletal details and a lot of emotion—that is, of course, what makes the album as important as it has become, certainly, but what makes “Hammer” the kind of resonant, deeply affecting song—one that soars with accessibility, yes, but also an undeniable authenticity and grace in how it explores this kind of darkness that for me, and maybe for you, impossible to get out from under completely. 

I don’t wanna be here. But I do.

*

I don’t wanna go anywhere, anymore. I don’t wanna be anything—anything.

And what I realized, just now, that you think I may have put together before this point, is that throughout Romanticism, Vu talks a lot about what she doesn’t want. Specifically. On “Hammer,” she doesn’t want to be here, but she also does. 

And on the absolutely stunning and devastating “22,” she sings, before the chorus, “I don’t wanna go anywhere, anymore. I don’t wanna be anything‚—anything.”

But, what is it that she wants, then? Or is that something that she even knows? Or, if she does know, is it something she wishes to reveal?

Later, in “22,” she howls, “I just wanna hold onto you”—the you, though, in question, is ambiguous, as the song itself, almost from the moment it opens, is allegorical about the uncomfortable feelings of being in between—leaving your youth behind, but facing “adulthood,” with a horrible sense of uncertainty, and the kind of wistfulness and longing for the past that we ultimately glorify.

Objectively, I would argue that “22,” arriving within the first half of Romanticism, is the album’s finest moment, or certainly one of its more impressive songs, simply because of what it manages to accomplish, doing so with an arresting, albeit heartbreaking kind of beauty and grace.

Musically, less raucous and a little slower in its pacing, “22” does unfold, and flourish, in the place where a flair for drama, and a knack for infectious songwriting and melodies intersects—there is something melancholic, or downcast about how it sounds (not even taking Vu’s lyricism into account) but even in the kind of sadder tone it strikes right from the beginning, it is structured in a way that is incredibly catchy, or at least well assembled so that it is accessible to a casual listen—and, again, it is another moment on the album where Vu as a songwriter has dressed up the darkness of her writing with something that is, like, very pleasant to listen to and easy to get lost in, in terms of melody and instrumentation.

Opening with a slowly strummed guitar, gently drifting underneath Vu’s melancholy, the rest of the instrumentation comes slowly tumbling in shortly after the first verse, and, much like the moments of tension and release within “Hammer,” there are moments when the percussive elements do drop out, temporarily, to allow a greater emphasis on a specific moment, and allows her to build things right back up again. 

The thing that is the most impactful about “22” is the way that Vu writes about very specific feelings, or sensations. Or states of being. Because it is a challenge write about something that is both universal, and extremely personal, and find the way to effortlessly blend those two extremes together to create something that speaks to both, or does justice to each. There is an anguish, and a desperation, in the way she writes. And a real clarity. Like, the imagery is very, very vivid, but there is also such a vagueness to the way these phrases, and what they evoke, hang in the fabric of the song. 

What Vu explores, in her writing, on “22” is less about nostalgia, and more about a longing for something that like, no matter how hard you try to romanticize it, you can’t get it back, and what lies ahead is full of so much uncertainty, or potential discomfort—and she writes about it, at first, like a dream, before it slowly shifts into more of a waking nightmare.

“I’m at the movies, and they’re playing our story,” she begins. “It’s black and white, and I can’t stop watching. At the bar, and they’re playing our song—it sounds like summer, and white guitars.”

The turn inward, from the wistful, into something more harrowing, comes in the second verse. “I’m at the house that we grew up in—it falls down without you here,” Vu confesses. “And in the car, I scream so loud because I don’t exist no more.”

“22” ends with the repeated catharsis that gets to the conceit of the song—that space between one thing abruptly ending and another, as abruptly, beginning, and the feelings that come from existing in that space. “I’m just getting old,” Vu admits. “I’m just 22. I just want to hold onto you.” And the kind of feeling she details in the lines that are placed in between the verses also certainly are a part of this encompassing theme—but there is something, also, that is very resonant about how frankly she depicts a feeling of restlessness, or unease with the self, with this horrible, inescapable sense of sadness. 

“I don’t wanna go anywhere, anymore,” Vu explains. “I don’t wanna be anything—anything.”

In the car, I scream so loud because I don’t exist no more.

I am a ghost of who I have been.

I don’t wanna be here—but I do.

*

Sometimes it does feel, especially over the last year, like I am telling, and re-telling, the same story. Or, if anything. A slight variant of a story that I have already shared too many times. Or, that I, perhaps because of a lack of imagination, continue to write myself and a few specific details, or situations, into places where they, maybe, do not belong in the first place, in an attempt, and a potentially ill-advised on at that, to construct a compelling narrative that bridges a gap, if you will.

Or, creates a convergence.

You write what you know. 

I don’t wanna be here—but I do.

And maybe this is coming at a bad time. Or a time when this does really seem like not just what I know, but maybe all I know. 

Part of the story that I have told, and re-told, and punched up into slight variations, and used, and continued to mine, here and there, is about not wanting to be here. But wanting to be here.

I have a flimsy relationship with the idea of my own mortality. It is well documented, both among people who know me, and despite how difficult I make it for them, love me. And it has become well-documented on the page. 

You write what you know.

And maybe this is coming at a bad time. When there are deadlines—my own, self-imposed deadlines for the things that I write about music and put onto the internet, and the deadlines for a competition organized by a literary journal.

You write what you know. 

It hurts to be alive.

I am hesitant to say that, over the last five years, I have been dealing with a kind of “writer’s block,” because as we, dear reader, crossed the threshold of over 10,000 words, that is not the case at all. I write. I write often. And as you can see, if you have stayed with me this far, the things that I have written just continue to grow in their word count and ambition.

That has, honestly, been out of necessity. I realize that now. Because even though it is not true—it is also true. For the last five years, I have been dealing with a kind of “writer’s block.” There is no longer there separation that I once had and honestly benefitted from having, where there were separate places to write about music, personally of course—but that there was somewhere for the inherently more personal reflections and observations to go.

I write a lot about the idea of convergences. The space that forms when two things slowly begin to overlap, or intersect. And what happens within that space. 

I realize that this is that space. 

You write what you know. 

And continue to mine, or pull from, the stories you have told and re-told, and punched up through different variants. You write what you know—and you continue to mine your own failing mental health as an access point, and your paternal grandfather’s suicide, and your own, and for a long time, silent struggles with chronic passive suicidal ideation. 

I don’t wanna be here—but I do. 

“I need you to stay alive for forever,” my best friend told me in a voice note, not even two years ago, and so it is her that I find myself on the phone with, around a year later, first apologizing because I do require, more often than I care to admit, so much emotional management from the people that I love and who, again, despite how difficult I often make it for them, love me in return. For whatever reason.

I apologize, and I try to explain as delicately and tactfully as I could, or at least, in a way that would not cause immediate alarm—but did, anyway, how I had been feeling, or rather, what I had been feeling for such a large portion of the day.

And I have, in the past, written about, and given a lot of consideration over feeling like I am slowly fading away. Like there is a barrier, often something that I cannot see, that prevents me from remaining connected to others. Turning more, and more inward, whether I really wish to, or not.

You write what you know. That doesn’t make it easy to do. Or make it easy to talk about. Or make something you can easily explain.

You write what you know. That it hurts to be alive and you hope that there will be a time when that is not the case.

Are we gonna make it? ‘Cause I have to.

I don’t wanna be here—but I do.

And the thing is that, by the end of Romanticism, there is no real resolution. It isn’t the kind of album that leaves you with more questions than answers as it concludes—instead, and more than anything else, it asks for you to give consideration to how you feel about a specific time of your life, and why you may feel the way you do about it the further and further you distance yourself from it.

It asks us to consider ourselves. And others, yes. And how we feel about others. 

As impossible or as uncomfortable as it might make us, Romanticism asks us to consider why we feel how we do about ourselves. 

Write what you know.

Often the sound of both trying to run away from something within yourself while, at the same time, running, at full speed, toward it, Romanticism is a searing, gorgeous, staggeringly impressive, and harrowing statement that speaks volumes, and makes a connections on such a deep, personal level, that other albums rarely can. 

Romanticism is out now via Ghostly.