Myles Smith ‘My Mess, My Heart, My Life’ review: Soul-baring honesty from Britain’s newest star
On his debut album, Myles Smith offers up a collection of irresistible anthems while also offering his heart firmly on his sleeve.
Honesty, especially about the difficult and less glamorous parts of life, is at the core of Myles Smith’s music. Emerging in 2024 with the enormous breezy hit ‘Stargazing’ and a boy-next-door demeanour, he gave the impression of a radio-friendly singer-songwriter who was here for a good time.
That remains true, but as Smith wrote on Instagram a while before the release of his debut album, “it’s so important for me that you get to know the real me and not just parts of it.” Cue ‘My Mess’, the first song of the record My Mess, My Heart, My Life.
“I was born into a fractured family / Where a word can start a war,” he sings, before opening up on childhood abuse: “He grabbed my shirt and he bruised my cheek / Sad a man had to go toe to toe with a boy thirteen.” It’s a striking note on which to begin an album that reveals the songwriter’s deeper layers.
Speaking in a Rolling Stone UK cover feature last year, Smith said he was pressured to release an album to capitalise on the runaway success of ‘Stargazing’. “Why would I put out an album if I don’t have an album’s worth of things to talk about?” went his response, and the patience shown here makes this a more rounded and representative record.
Across the album, he presents romance (‘Hold Me in the Dark’), depression (‘Sertraline’) and barnstorming energy (‘Stay (If You Wanna Dance)’), with each emotion committed to fully.
What sets Smith apart from his contemporaries is a willingness to embrace and translate the confusion that persists within him. This is an album that tracks his journey of discovery but doesn’t signal any neat ending. “My mission statement is to write songs that don’t necessarily end with a pretty bow,” he told Rolling Stone UK. “There were so many times in my life where I used to write songs that basically said: I was heartbroken, then I figured it out, now everything’s OK. But the reality is: I was heartbroken, it was really shit, and it’s still really confusing.”
The best example of this is ‘My Mess’, which contains lyrics taken verbatim from one of Smith’s therapy sessions, and admits that there is a long road still to travel. “I hate the way that I’m still like this / I’m still learning to walk on my own,” he sings, with the bracing honesty that defines the album.
Continuing his openness, he sings on the album’s standout track, the divine ‘Dying Day’: “I have no secrets / I’ll bear my soul.”
When announcing that the album release would be delayed, Smith told fans: “I’m close to burning out… I don’t want to meet this moment exhausted.” It was another moment of refreshing frankness from a singer providing far more than first meets the eye.