Album Review: Rosie Carney, Doomsday... Don’t Leave Me Here

Rosie Carney’s music has an air of quiet apocalypse: the end of a relationship, of innocence, of a world she once knew. On Doomsday… Don’t Leave Me Here, she lets that feeling bloom into something larger.

Where her debut Bare leaned into hushed folk vulnerability, and I Wanna Feel Happy introduced a rockier, more confrontational edge, Doomsday… feels like the marriage of those impulses.

With its dreamlike-yet-synthetic soundscape, it marks a stunning pivot from the Donegal-based songsmith, who spent months in the studio with both long-time collaborator Ed Thomas and The 1975’s Ross MacDonald. Tracks glide between brooding electronics and propulsive rhythms, as on ‘Everything Is Wrong’ and ‘Fragile Fantasy’, which also articulate the album’s themes: existential dread, nostalgia, love and loss.

On standout ‘The Evidence’, Carney seeks to tackle the demons that keep her up at night. The urgent BPM, shimmering synths and ethereal falsetto propel the track, while the lyrics circle a sense of fragmentation and unease.

What’s most compelling is how Doomsday… balances light and shadow. Its bright synth flourishes and lush arrangements don’t undercut the lyrical weight, but rather illuminate it. The result is a stunning album that pushes Carney into exhilarating new territory.

8/10