Romance is a funny old game. One minute, you’ll be in the trenches of heartbreak, swearing off love forever. The next, you’re down bad for someone new and do a full 180 into living in a swoony movie in your head. Suki Waterhouse’s third album, ‘Loveland’, captures some of the feelings of that latter experience, mining her relationships and infatuations past and present to build a world you’ll want to immerse yourself in whether you’re coupled up, on the hunt or convinced you’re destined to be alone.

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“Picture this, it’s innocent / ‘Cause I haven’t even held your hand yet / Do you know that you’ve been coming up in my dreams?” she asks over the Strokes-y guitars of ‘Almost’, diving into a fantasy that plays out in her head alone. ‘Jukebox’, one of the album’s most fun, strutting songs, heads on a night out, while the slower, softer ‘Notting Hill’ turns its sights not to a beau, but to Waterhouse’s old flat in the titular area of London, and her formative experiences that hinged around it.

Falling in love often comes with a sense of letting go of control, but Waterhouse maintains her power throughout ‘Loveland’. On ‘Any Man’, she’s supremely confident, boasting about the sway she holds over the opposite sex. “Guess I should admit I’ll be in my prime until I die,” she purrs before her killer claim: “I can have any man at all / Got a special touch, I’m not doing much / Just second nature, baby”. As soon as that track finishes, she veers course, ‘Happy With It’ finding her unsatisfied with a partner, but refusing to stay in something that doesn’t serve her. “Is this what happiness is? / If this is it, then I quit”, she sadly shrugs.

There’s a natural split between the songs on the record – those that fit that cinematic, head-spinning feeling of falling in love, and others that pay tribute to far more mundane things. ‘Weirdo’ captures the ache of being away from your partner, longing for the boring everyday things that you might usually take for granted (“I’m gonna clean your shirts and press them down / Gonna pour your favourite liquor”). It’s a gorgeous piece of writing that helps Waterhouse capture another side of her own love story.

Since releasing her debut album ‘I Can’t Let Go’ in 2022, Waterhouse has quietly become one of modern alt-pop’s most consistent and brilliant artists, able to distil heady feelings into songs that move you and make you want to move. That likely played a part in her securing a Mick Fleetwood feature on the country swing of ‘Morals’, and ‘Loveland’ as a whole maintains that sense of an artist who’s still growing but doing so in such compelling, self-assured fashion. No matter where you’re at in your love life right now, Waterhouse is giving us plenty to fall head over heels with.

Details

• Record label: Confidence River/Island Records
• Release date: July 10, 2026