Aldous Harding, Train on the Island

Aldous Harding’s music has never been crystal clear. She’s known to weave songs full of strange images and nonsensical lyrics, pulling you in and out of different realities and characters using her distinctive armory of voices. But something about her newest record, Train on the Island, feels like she’s letting the listener in a little closer than usual. 

The album begins bluntly with “I Ate the Most.” Harding inhabits the lyrics here in a way that’s shocking to a devoted listener of hers. The details about her childhood and her body are visceral and uncharacteristically plain. “Sometimes I eat ‘til I vomit,” she sings over a desolate, beeping keyboard melody. “I’m nine and I love my mommy / Silver hair and Ritalin / If I’m safe, then love is a spectrum,” she continues. It’s always interesting to see what voice will emerge first from a Harding record, and here her register is much more earnest than what I expected. Low, jaded, baring everything she’s singing about. The scenes that Harding creates can feel a bit fantastical at times, but “I Ate the Most” is harrowingly corporeal. We may not get all the details, but it still feels divulging, autobiographical. 

“One Stop” picks up the pace a bit. In the music video, Harding dances convulsively in the bottom of a big metal bucket, hair sopping wet, a few inches of water at her feet. It feels freeing. “I’m gonna write what I know, things I’ve known for a long time,” she sings like a mantra as a handful of notes descend on a loop in the background. 

The latter half of the song balances that feeling with a dose of uncertainty. This is the first we hear of the album’s refrain: “Why wouldn’t I wanna meet ya?” It’s unclear who she’s addressing, but the frantic vocals come across almost like begging. The lyrics end suddenly with “I’ll never do it again / Unless you wanna do it again.” These lines enter the song almost like a stream of consciousness (or perhaps an interrupting train of thought would be the more appropriate term). It reminds me of the line from the opening track, “No regrets, just things that will haunt me.” Train on the Island has this simultaneous capacity for owning things and having an underlying self-consciousness about them that feels very real and naturalistic. 

Tracks like “Train on the Island” and “Riding That Symbol” keep in step with the sparse, vulnerable approach that seems to set the record apart from Harding’s previous work. The lack of grandiosity points to these moments as the emotional core of the record where the listener is allowed to just sit with Harding’s feelings, however they may present themselves. “San Francisco,” acts similarly at first before shifting in the second half, picking back up the “Why wouldn’t I wanna meet ya?” refrain from earlier. It sounds equally as pained as before but is paired this time with a gentle acoustic strumming and shaking maraca. It creates a feeling of connection and consistency across an album that tends to jut in a lot of directions, but it’s also unexpected enough to feel true to what we would expect from Harding.

Fans of Harding’s will find some familiarity in tracks like “Worms” and “If Lady Does It,” with their abstract lyrics and shifting vocal styles. “Venus in the Zinnia” also provides much needed reprieve from the heavier moments of the record. H. Hawkline features in this one, lending perfectly complimentary vocals and a playful, bright guitar melody. Lines like “I cut my hair, nobody loved it” lend a sense of humor initially but also hearken back to that feeling of self-consciousness that pervades the record. “Coats” ends the record with a sense of attitude and boldness that’s almost reminiscent of female alternative vocalists from the 90s like Alanis Morissette and Fiona Apple. The chorus of this song is one of the moments that stands out the most sonically upon first listen, making it a strong end to a complicated album. 

Train on the Island sees the wondrousness of Harding’s style toughened into something a little different. Still strange, but more sobered. Harding’s vocal eccentricities have often been a main attraction in her music, but this time they feel more like a tool for expression than a display of skill or a stylistic quirk. It’s as honest as we’ve seen her. The closer you listen, the more Harding reveals to you. 

‘Train on the Island’ was released May 8, 2026, via 4AD