Photo Courtesy of NME

“You live and then you die, but the hardest pill to swallow is in the meantime,” Alessia Cara sings on the 12th track of her aptly titled album, “In the Meantime.” With 18 tracks, Cara attempts to follow in the footsteps of her previous successes while also trying to maintain the vulnerability with her audience that she is often known for.

Cara achieved great fame at only 19 years old with her single “Here” in 2015 and continued topping charts with songs such as “Scars to Your Beautiful” and “Stay” before appearing on Disney’s “Moana” soundtrack with “How Far I’ll Go.” Countless teenagers were immediately drawn to her for her relatability and approachability. Throughout this new project, Cara grapples with this idea of young fame and the anxiety and confusion that comes with growing up, now being 25. She also expertly ties together songs about heartbreak and her process of moving on and rediscovering herself amidst all of her uncertainty. That being said, she needs maybe half of the featured songs to get this message across and seems to struggle with finding new ways to say the same things on all the other ones.

Actually, many of these songs feel a lot like they are filling space in between what the album actually needs to get across. Throughout, Cara highlights a clear musical style of something that could be described as jazzy bubblegum pop. This also means that many of the songs seem to blur together, or are easily forgotten, and are clouded by an often-overwhelming sense of repetition. This sound is remarkably similar to Cara’s original songs, and after almost a decade and three other studio albums behind her, it’s likely fans were hoping for something new, or at least some evidence of musical growth. “In the Meantime,” peaked at #25 on U.S. iTunes charts, and has been receiving mixed reviews across the board.

 Though Cara has proven to be a powerful vocalist, the album also fails in that it features surprisingly few opportunities for her to utilize one of her greatest assets as a performer, and many of the songs suffer for it. The most stripped-down, and arguably most vocally impressive, song, “Best Days” is in fact the same 12th track that features the aforementioned titular lyric, as if Cara herself also knew this was her strongest element. She explores more of her lower register all the while preserving her artful balance between belt and yell, that is, when she’s not preoccupied with her painfully simple “catchy” choruses.

The album opens up with a 41-second track called “Unboxing Intro,” which begins relatively slow and without many instruments, but quickly unfolds and increases in both tempo and accompaniment until its chaotic and unfocused ending. While difficult to listen to at times, it sets a good precedent for the overall emotions and themes Cara places in her album. In fact, the album itself seems to echo this format, with the songs slowly gaining more momentum and becoming more distinct and emotional as it draws to a close, evoking both the intro and the complications of growing older.

On the whole, while “In the Meantime” is sincerely not a bad album by any means, it feels remarkably mediocre, or like something listeners have already heard from Cara. The overall impression of a series of songs that a local department store might put on their background music playlist is hard to shake while listening, and most fans are certain that they could, and should, expect more from such a talented artist.