Lizzy McAlpine soundtracks her own cinematic heartbreak on five seconds flat

In the video for “all my ghosts,” 22 year old McAlpine dances joyfully under the neon signs of a corner store, basking in the glow of a blossoming romance. She sings about the small, charged moments of her new love: shared shots of brandy, flirtatious glances and tentative kisses – but behind the excitement is a flicker of doubt. “All my ghosts are with me / I know you feel them too,” she repeats; and sure enough, at the end of the video we see the fleeting apparition of her ex through the window of the corner store – the spectre of her past that’s constantly lurking in the back of her mind.

This video is not incidental to the story of five seconds flat – it forms part of a beautifully shot narrative short film that accompanies the record. Over 30 minutes and five select songs from the album, we watch McAlpine fighting to escape the gravitational pull of a troubled formative relationship: the ghost that hides in the shadows, threatening to sabotage her happiness.

In its best moments, five seconds flat captures the complex and often contradictory emotions that come with letting another person into your life. On “hate to be lame,” McAlpine enlists FINNEAS’ warm baritone for a duet about telling someone you love them for the first time; something that should be joyful but sounds vulnerable and fraught with tension. Elsewhere, however, McAlpine has a tendency to fall back on singer/songwriter tropes and lyrical platitudes, resulting in songs that can occasionally fade into the background. “called you again” – a song about the self-destructive urge to speak to an ex – feels like a missed opportunity, being too direct to give any real insight into McAlpine’s state of mind (​​”Did I call you again? / I think that I was lonely / And I missed having friends.”)

Despite this, the album still has several highlights. From the curious and cinematic “doomsday;” to “erase me,” featuring Jacob Collier’s typically oblique vocal noodling, and even the jubilant, redemptive album closer “orange show speedway,” McAlpine showcases her skill as a singer, songwriter and storyteller, making five seconds flat an excellent soundtrack to the universally relatable state of broken-heartedness.