ALBUM REVIEW: LOYLE CARNER - HOPEFULLY ! (20/06/25)

Loyle Carner’s latest release hopefully ! brings us into a world close to home for Carner with its quiet intimacy.

Following on from hugo, his most commercially successful album thus far, Carner continues to delve into his family’s past, his mental health and the weight and joy of being a parent, all with his usual poetic lyricism. More stripped back than his previous work, it’s an album filled with peace, fear, doubt, and most importantly, hope.

Carner’s son and his identity as a father is ever-present throughout the album, with the artwork title showing his son touching his face with childlike scribbles over the top. The album instantly creates intimacy with sounds of his children playing around a dinner table in the intro to ‘feel at home’. Here Carner espouses the importance and now reliance on his family for peace in between simplistic piano chords and more chaotic drum synths– ‘‘you feel like home, without your heart I feel alone’.’’

Now a dad for the second time, he has settled into fatherhood. ‘lyin’ finds Carner reflective on the transition between his past life and his joy within fatherhood – ‘‘fall asleep beside a chair I used to write in, now I only spend the night in, rocking back and forth maybe more exciting’.’ The airy, stripped back production is filled with warmth and includes his singing vocals, a first for Carner who has only ever sung to his kids and introduces a new level of vulnerability into the album.

A big advocate of CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably), Carner continuously touches on his mental health throughout his music. The dreamy ‘in my mind’, finds Carner bringing us into his anxious thoughts with a meditative chant and twinkling piano that drifts you away – ‘‘in my mind again, lost in my mind again, something’s in my mind again’.’’ ‘time to go’ focusses more directly on his past struggles and the pressure of his career whilst battling with his brain.

Doubt is constant throughout the album, whether it’s about the state of the world or his ability to balance fatherhood and his career. The title track ‘hopefully’ focusses on the hope his children have given him in humanity, whilst still questioning ‘but are humans kind?’. His son’s playful shouts of ‘‘echo’’ lie underneath the track as a reminder of the simplistic wonder of childhood. This questioning of the world, is spoken most directly through the Benjamin Zephaniah quote at the end of the song, finishing with ‘‘so now I use my pen to bring out my anger’’.

Doubts of his own ability as a father are littered within the album but are focused mostly on the final track ‘about time’, where Carner questions his ability to have his career and be there for his children, most plainly put in the lyric ‘‘They say my son needs a father, haha, Not a rapper, can I give him what he’s after?’’. The song, and the album, finishes with his son asking him to finish his session and go home. An intimate and poignant end, perfectly representing the entire album in the final 10 seconds.

hopefully! is a beautiful and carefully constructed insight into Loyle Carner’s development as a man and a father. Carner’s vulnerability and care throughout the album, enhanced by his newly introduced singing style, will surely keep him in his place as the sweetheart of UK rap. It puts Carner in a strong position before facing one of the largest gigs of his career as he headlines the Other Stage at Glastonbury on Friday.