Hanorah, Perennial: REVIEW

Hanorah, Perennial (Ensoul)

When making a clean break from your past, you often have to rid your closet of skeletons first. For Montreal’s own Hanorah, this comes through on one of her debut album Perennial’s standout tracks, “Skeletons”, where her delicate-yet-robust voice takes listeners through her journey in self-love despite all her imperfections and blemishes.

Perennial is the culmination of seven years’ worth of hard work, one EP (2019’s For the Good Guys and the Bad Guys), slots opening for artists like Coeur de Pirate and the legendary Mavis Staples, and time spent confronting topics like intimacy, failed relationships, grief and her subsequent emotional and intellectual growth.

Fans of similarly soulful and icy-cool singers like Amy Winehouse and Charlotte Day Wilson will find plenty to like here. This is especially the case with the breezy “Solution,” the sharp-tongued “Slingshot” and the cashmere-soft “Coffee.” Closing track “Afterlife” is a somber piano dirge, where Hanorah alternates between lamenting a loved one’s passing and being proud to keep that person in her heart and mind forever.

Certain tracks — specifically the first two, “Candle Wax” and “If Life Were a Movie” — can feel a bit too short, and she could still find room to challenge herself more artistically. Perennial nonetheless serves as an effective introduction to Hanorah’s folky, emotionally evocative take on soul and R&B. 8/10 Trial Track: “Skeletons”

“Skeletons” by Hanorah

This review was originally published in the October issue of Cult MTL.

For more on Hanorah, please visit her Bandcamp.

For more Montreal music coverage, please visit the Music section.