By Tyler Banks

The fall is a rather gloomy season. It represents the mortality of all living things, and it can bring along a wave of emotions to come with it. Some feel sad that they must go, some feel happy they could experience life. But one thing always remains, and that is that they experienced a feeling. 

The ability to feel — not just physically, but also emotionally, is something so innate, something that humans are so accustomed to, that they can’t even identify their own emotions. They just feel. Their self-awareness is almost non-existent. Plunging into those emotions can leave people vulnerable, feeling stripped of their sanity. But that’s where Snoh Aalegra comes in. 

She released her second studio album, Ugh, Those Feels Again, in August of last year, right around the beginning of fall, and like the season itself, her album produced a wave of emotions from her fans and new listeners alike. To go even further, one could suggest that this album represents life itself, and all that comes with it. 

Feelings of love, lust, hatred, bliss, and so much more are found within the lives of so many while they’re alive— and it’s all on this album. Unfortunately, there are also so many people who have yet to listen to it. Perhaps they’ve seen it but chose not to listen because as the album suggests, it is quite the task to manage one’s emotions without driving themselves mad. 

Nonetheless, as fall closes while winter approaches, this album is a great way to deal with your emotions so that the healing process can begin.

The album itself is comprised of 14 songs and is only 40 minutes long, which in this era is quite short. But, every song holds value. To elaborate, this album is a timeline of a relationship, but in this relationship Snoh is put through the wringer emotionally as she explores the highs and lows of this situation, ultimately leading to who she is now. It’s split into 4 sections: the highs, the lows, the healing, and the end.

In the highs, Snoh illustrated moments of pure bliss and infatuation from the inception of the relationship to its most intimate moments. In Situationship, the listeners hear the beginning moments of a relationship that at the moment isn’t anything serious and is only about having fun. The angelic melody that plays in the background creates an ambiance that promotes the young, dumb fun found in these low attachment relationships. 

But as the relationship progresses, the listeners hear songs like Someone Like You, Toronto, I Want You Around, and Woah, to show how this relationship has evolved from some summer fling to true companionship. The listeners become captivated with this new found love between Snoh and her partner as she sings his praises throughout these songs. This is particularly noticeable in Whoa, where Snoh is in such awe of her lover than all she can say is whoa. The wave has hit. The butterflies are in her stomach. And the listener is just there, with a smile on their face.

The funny thing about albums is that when they create these stories within their songs, the listener just takes that “fly on the wall” position where they can just visualize all of the scenes that the songstress is orchestrating. The listener sees what Snoh sees, and they hear what she hears.  That’s why it’s significantly more saddening when Snoh goes through the breakup. 

The next three songs are the lows. Love Like That, arguably the best song on the album, has Snoh dig deep into her R&B bag, emphasizing the blues. In this song, Snoh and her partner have hit a roadblock. 

From Snoh’s point of view, he won’t communicate with her as she’s done with him and it’s becoming quite exasperating to deal with. They haven’t been on the same page and it’s become this toxic cycle of disagreement leading to fighting, and then the fight leads to a break, and then they make up only to start all over again. They’ve become bad for each other but their love (or pride) won’t allow them to give up on the relationship. 

It’s truly heartbreaking because, at this point, it’s only been about 2-3 minutes since the listener was in the highs. Such a noticeable shift in tone shows how life can take an immediate turn for the worse and it’s not even your fault. It just happens. 

The next two songs, Be Careful and Charleville 9200, Pt.2, are directly after the breakup, and Snoh can be seen as empty. Like many after a breakup, she struggled to find herself considering her whole life revolved around a single person. She was in the highs for so long and suddenly she crashed. She says “Why you take me up this high? Just to put a hole in my parachute, So I would fall for you,” in Charleville 9200, Pt.2 to show the listener just how hard it’s been without her partner. The wound is fresh and yet she can still feel drawn to him. 

This is the hardest part. The farther she goes away, the closer she feels to him. Her heart says yes but her mind says no. This internal turmoil bleeds into Be Careful, where she expresses her pain since losing the love of her life. But it then grinds to a halt as we enter the healing.

The healing is composed of the next two songs, You, and Njoy. This is the stage of the breakup where she still feels connected to him but not enough to go back to him. She’s in a reflective space where she can analyze and process her emotions. This is most important for the healing to work. Snoh is releasing her past lover from her life so that she can be free. His weight has been lifted and now there is peace.

The last 3 songs, Nothing to Me, Didn’t Mean to Fall In Love, and Peace, are a part of the end or peace section. This is the part of the album where Snoh has accepted the results of the relationship and has grown from it. The listener can tell from the songs that though she still respects her past lover, he’s just a reflection in her rearview mirror. She’s driven way past him and that relationship to find new adventures. In, Didn’t Mean to Fall In Love, this is most clear. 

By accepting that she can’t find love and that love has to find her, she lifts herself from her need for companionship. After the breakup, she struggled to do anything by herself because for so long she had someone with her every step of the way. But now she realizes that she’s her own person and doesn’t need a partner to feel loved or valued. Snoh now finds value in her life through things outside of a relationship, and when a new relationship comes, she’ll be able to handle that in a more mature manner.

Life, like this album, is an amalgamation of emotions that we as humans have to deal with every day. Many people do and some choose not to because it’s too painful. But Snoh has shown us something. Despite everything she’s been through, she found the light in the tunnel. She went through the highs, lows, healing, and peace that all people either have or should experience. So, maybe when you’re going through a tough, emotional situation, you don’t have to say “ugh” anymore because Snoh’s done it for you.

The rating of this album comes deservingly: 10/10