English singer-songwriter Holly Humberstone has announced her highly anticipated sophomore album, Cruel World, to be released on April 10, 2026 via Universal Music Group. One of the defining voices of his generation returns with an album that captures the tension between pain and pleasure, where chaos and acceptance exist side by side. Renowned for her precise songwriting, nominated for an Ivor Novello Award for her debut EP and winner of the 2022 BRIT Rising Star Award, Holly Humberstone has grown into a global force whose honest storytelling resonates far beyond her walls.
The new single "To Love Somebody", which heralds the album "Cruel World", is accompanied by a mesmerizing video directed by Silken Weinberg (known for working with Ethel Cain). Inspired by Victorian theatre, the Brothers Grimm and the film 'Nosferatu', 'To Love Somebody' is a powerful opening for the 26-year-old artist at the very beginning of the new year. For Holly, love is now both grounding and destabilizing. "The issue explores love as something beautiful but fundamentally painful," she says.
"In the song 'To Love Somebody' I wanted to capture that contradiction: loving someone means hurting someone and losing someone, but at least you had a chance to love. To feel extreme happiness, you have to know extreme sadness. That's the tension of this album," explains Holly Humberstone.
While her debut album "Paint My Bedroom Black" was marked by turbulence and longing, "Cruel World" is anchored in stability and reminiscence.
Visually, Holly built the world with her sister Ellery and creative director Silken Weinberg, inspired by childhood trinkets they found when leaving the "haunted house" where she grew up. From ballet flats to Alice in Wonderland books, and movies like "Edward Scissorhands" and "James and the Giant Peach," rummaging through girlhood has transformed the ghosts of the past into something playful and magical.
From winning a BRIT Rising Star in 2022 with just two EPs released, to 2023's critically acclaimed 'Paint My Bedroom Black', Holly has become known for her unflinching honesty and ability to articulate the quiet turbulence of early youth.
Her story began with "Falling Asleep At The Wheel," a breakthrough EP that revealed a young woman turning her childhood home and growing up with three sisters into vivid, memorable songs like "Vanilla," "Overkill" and "Deep End." Her voice has quickly taken her to international stages: from performing 'London Is Lonely' live to millions at the 2022 BRIT Awards, to supporting artists such as Olivia Rodrigo and Girl in Red across North America.
