Adrielle Bow Belle has released her new seven-movement social justice concept album Freeze.
By Eleanor Banyard
The album moves in a non-linear arc, transferring from present to past and back into childhood creating a unique narrative of repetition across generations. Bow Belle treats us to a literary, atmospheric blend of alt-pop, folk, and narrative songwriting across seven tracks (three of which are previously released records contextualised for the first time, and one is an a cappella version).
Opener Icy Roads has featured before on our blog when Graeme interviewed Bow Belle about it in May 2026. In the context of the album, it submerges the listener into her world. The vulnerable yet upbeat vocals blends seamlessly with the background instrumental and provide vital moral messages around the origins of America and the continuation of prejudicial racist ideologies.
Come Home Tonight also merges raw honest vocals with deep lyrics and a relaxed tone. The chill nature of the song contrasts the lyrics, with mentions to guns and appeals for help, establishing a narrative around the precarious nature of life: “we never know how much time we got,” Bow Belle declares.
Small Talk is more upbeat still with the undercurrent of serious themes. Bow Belle continues to explore the history of race in America with reference to Jim Crow Laws, the legal enforcement of racial separation from the late nineteenth century to the 1960s. This powerful narrative educates the listeners of the album to momentous events in history, which in turn have direct impacts on the current prejudices seen today.
Breaking News brings this historical focus forward to a current perspective, with references to hashtags, videos, and news coverage, creating parallels between the past and now. The song has many deep powerful lyrics which highlight the injustices present including the standout line “don’t even make the news until they turn up dead, nobody bats an eye.”
Bunker is contrastingly innocent track which transports the listener into the narrator’s childhood. Balanced in between this tone are dark references which overcast the happy instrumentals. “Turns out all the king’s horses and all the king’s men don’t put broken families together again,” laments Bow Belle.
Rockets, a wide-reaching track naming places affected by conflict including Palestine, Sudan, Congo, Iran, Yemen, Lebanon, and Syria, finds a final moral message about hope, with lyrics such as: “we got the whole world in our hands,” highlighting that despite the bleak outlook of the album there is still some positivity.
With her new album, Adrielle Bow Belle has created something important. Her lyrics delivered poetically and with eloquence should help the world to pause and think.
Freeze is out now, and you can listen to it below.
Supported by Musosoup #SustainableCurator
