Aftershock
Release date: July 15, 2022
Genre:Indie Pop/Pop
Label:Interscope Records
“I wonder if your therapist likes me.”
That starting line feels like the center of Aftershock. It was neither dramatic nor explosive, but quietly lingering, like the kind of thought you don’t say out loud but keep returning to.
Released July 15, 2022 via Interscope Records, Alexander 23 builds the album around a very specific emotional space. Among artists like Jeremy Zucker and Lauv, he feels the most direct. There is very little distance between the feeling and the way it is expressed. Nothing is overly abstract. It is all very immediate.
The album lives almost entirely inside heartbreak. Every song feels like a different angle of the same relationship, which makes the project cohesive, but also slightly repetitive over time. You begin to see a clear portrait of this person he is writing about, what they like, what they don’t, how they exist in his memory. But everything is filtered through him. We understand how he feels about them, but not necessarily who they are beyond that perspective. I kept wanting to hear more through them, not just about them.
Sonically, the album is very clean. The production is crisp, clear, and carefully balanced. Nothing feels muddy, nothing feels accidental. The arrangements are perfectly structured. It makes the listening experience easy, but might be too easy because everything sits in a similar emotional and sonic range.
There are moments where the writing shifts just enough to stand out. Magic Wand is one of them. It plays with intimacy in a way that feels controlled and self aware, never crossing into something overly explicit. It understands the tone it wants and stays within it. Somebody’s Nobody also stands out, built on a simple but effective lyrical idea, flipping perspective in a way that feels familiar but still satisfying.
What I found most interesting is how the album handles structure. Fall 2017 (What If?) carries a subtle connection to RIP You and Me, where the “what if” feels like a reprise, almost like the same thought returning at a different moment. If that is intentional, it adds a quiet sense of continuity to the album, reinforcing the idea that these songs are not separate stories, but part of the same emotional loop.
And that loop is what defines the album. It does not really break out of itself. The emotion is consistent, almost to the point where it becomes its own limitation. The songs do not lack feeling, but they stay within the same intensity. There is very little shift in perspective or emotional range.
Listening to Aftershock, I kept feeling like something was slightly out of reach. Not missing, but not fully expanded. The album knows exactly what it feels, but it does not always push that feeling further. It holds onto it, repeats it, sits in it.
And maybe that is the point: heartbreak, and what comes after. That is the aftershock.
Ed has loved music for as long as he can remember. He is a graduate student at NYU studying Music Business, with a focus on marketing, artist development and PR. In his free time, he writes songs, follows pop culture way too closely, and runs music fan pages online.