The Singles Bar: NOVUL is no ‘Amateur’
The pop newcomer peels back the layers of her heart for a new single.
Welcome to The Singles Bar, a review series focused on new single and song releases.
We’ve all got a breaking point ⏤ that moment when the fairy tale we’ve built up in our minds completely shatters. Once reality cracks the surface, hair fractures tearing outward, all bets are off. Rising out of the farmlands of Saskatchewan, Canada, pop newcomer named Novul is shrouded in mystery but leans heavily and unapologetically into raw vulnerability with her latest single, a parched-earth ballad called “Amateur.” Through a glossy, R&B exterior and production blurring various rhythmic styles, spliced with echoing acoustic guitar, the independent singer and songwriter hollows out her heart for the sake of getting the pressure off her chest. She can finally breathe for the first time in her life.
“You claim you know my worth / But it’s wrong the way you treat me,” she sings, sweetly entangling her voice around the bitterness that’s finally erupting into the light. She relinquishes the pain, and it is swept up into the atmosphere on a melody as gliding and sweltering as the summer’s last exasperated sigh. She further confronts the emotional quakes rumbling in her bones, turning her piercing gaze at the man who devastated her and left her cold. “You know I gave you all my love / But the world was not enough / Because you’re an amateur / You couldn’t give me what I need.”
“Amateur” follows on the heels of “Boys Like You,” which stretches the musical elastic of commercial pop in dangerously familiar ways. It’s a one-two punch of depth, as Novul displays the scope of her aesthetic, and in each case, her voice is firmly planted centerstage in the glowing limelight.
Listen below:
