Honey and Blue’s New Single “All in My Head”

You’d likely be unable to guess as much from the first few moments of the song, but Honey and Blue’s new single “All in My Head” is a harmony storm just waiting to immerse your speakers in beautiful melodies this summer. Behind a soft melody, the drums circle the verses and box in the verses as if to imply an ever-tightening rope around the narrative they’re trying to construct. The poetry is gorgeous but not quite cutting, but just when it feels as though Honey and Blue are about to be suffocated by the beat closing in around them and us the same, they release a tidal wave of catharsis in the chorus immediately returning justice to its place above these beats. “All in My Head” is deeply emotional compositionally and made all the more so because of how sincerely these performers present it.

I can see where a lot of other bands might have gone with a bulkier bassline than what this duo ended up choosing, but to their credit, it does leave the harmony sounding a lot lighter toward the fever pitch of the song. There’s nothing worse than an anticlimactic finish in a track that has the kind of immense tension “All in My Head” is born of from the get-go, but it would appear that Honey and Blue could be teaching a course on how to give us exactly what we need right in the clutch moment we need it in this single. They sound like they’ve refined their style a lot just in the process of getting to this track, and I think this is the most focused they could have sounded.

As much as I could praise the singing in this single, I’ve got a lot of love for this arrangement’s presence as well. It’s uncompromisingly smooth and rehearsed, giving the energy of an orchestra more than it does a pop outfit. The soulful cues have a lot of effect on how we interpret the personal nature of the story Honey and Blue are telling, and to me, they make the entire song feel a lot more straightforward and steeped in truth than it would have with a different set of players behind these truly gifted musicians. The little details are what make the difference in this genre, and as a new follower, I can tell this is a pair that never leaves them to chance.

Anyone ready to count an indie pairing like Honey and Blue out of the game in 2023 didn’t see a treasure like “All in My Head” coming down the pipes anytime soon and I have a feeling that this soul-pop twosome is about to start commanding a lot more respect from around the underground in the months ahead. They aren’t taking the easy road in this piece, but instead challenging each other and their band to go a little further into the arms of a traditional (albeit groove-heavy) soul sound, and if there’s anything we can learn about the future of their discography from listening to “All in My Head,” it’s that their passion is only going to get stronger with age.

Mindy McCall