Billie Marten reckons with loves multifaceted beauty on Drop Cherries

She is also adept at stripping away the noise of the world. Since finding the spotlight creeping up around her back in 2015 while she was in her mid-teens, Marten established herself with a voice beyond her years which naturally brought undue attention. This time, she's honing in on what matters most.

Her fourth album, Drop Cherries is her most complete vision to date. Where previous efforts have been extensions of this, her last outing – 2021’s Flora Fauna – sought to build outward and upward, with more tangible, expanding sounds, this time it’s back to basics.

Thirteen tracks of reckoning and realising the multifaceted beauty love offers – Marten herself has likened the album's title to the messy visual of love; a violent feast of red on white. Starkly corresponding with the album's vulnerabilities, the tracks are individual cherries dropping onto her fourth album's unsullied carpet until we’re left with the stains of pain and experience.

It's easy to compare Drop Cherries to sepia-tinged footage on a VHS dug out from behind some boxes in the attic, and that's because they offer the same warmth and comfort of something you didn’t realise was missing until you stumble upon it. Drop Cherries finds romance paired with such reflection, in the most brutally affecting way possible.

Marten's folk touchstones get to work instantly. Opener "New Idea" proposes little more than an aperitif to change whatever season you're currently embued in, ready to float along with her on this fruitful journey. “I Can’t Get My Head Around You” offers up the most three-dimensional sound, with a full band bolstering her heavenly harmonies. “I Bend To Him” brings Marten to the forefront, whispering, vulnerabilities striking with the same graceful might as a summer storm.

Stripped back, the focus is on the very essence of Marten, her vocals and guitar shimmering together effortlessly – the occasional sweeping string arrangement wringing out every piece of emotional connection possible. “Acid Tongue”’s starkness offers up insight, with ”You worry yourself into mistrust” holding aloft the crux of romance in reality, spotlighting Marten's adept lyrical abilities.

Certainly, there's a push and pull at play with Drop Cherries. Taking place in a world that requires you to understand the minutiae and dichotomy of love – where heroes and villains coexist – without this prerequisite knowledge, by the end of the flickering film, it may feel like a one-trick pony. However, if you've felt the cold light of day on you after your own divine tussle with Cupid, then this album will gently offer aid.