After a few long years, Ellie Goulding released a new album called, “Higher Than Heaven” on April 7. It’s been three years since the release of Ellie Goulding’s last album, “Brightest Blue,” and eight years since her hit single, “Love Me Like You Do,” and it’s safe to say she’s still in 2015. 

“Higher Than Heaven” consists of 16 songs that Goulding claims to be the least personal out of all her discography. The album features different artists such as Big Sean, Alok and Sigala. Goulding sticks to what she knows and has a full album of the classic pop beats we all know and love. 

Throughout the tracks you can tell that she focused on the background beats and instrumentals more than lyrics on many of the songs. It works really well on songs like “Midnight Dreams” and “Love Goes On,” where the background has a disco-like track that compliments her voice and lyrics well. It also works on “Like A Saviour,” which has a good beat that keeps your head bopping. However, it doesn’t work on a majority of her tracks like, “How Long” or “Better Man” where there is a trap beat that doesn’t fit and feels unwelcome. Because the album has so many techno beats that I don’t feel like fit, it was difficult and boring to listen to. One song that stood out to me negatively was “By The End Of The Night.” This is because the synth-pop beats threw me back and surprised me — it was unexpected from the first few songs and I didn’t feel like it fit in, even though the others had strong beats as well. Because of the large contrast, it felt wrong in the album and I disliked it more than the other songs. 

All of the songs on the album have one thing in common: a 2010s beat. While listening to the album I was sent back to the early 2010s with a consistent head-bopping beat. It was fun to listen to for the first few songs but after so many songs, it became too repetitive and tiring to listen to — it didn’t really feel like she was progressing throughout the album or moving forward with her music.

One thing that I was pleasantly surprised with was her lyrics. I have never really listened to Ellie Goulding but I do know the type of lyrics that she writes for her songs. She really surprised me with the lyrics on “Higher Than Heaven” because they show lots of growth and learning from over the years. She has lyrics such as “Caught up in my emotions, and now I’ll be lettin’ ‘em go” on the track “Cure For Love,” which is a massive contrast from “Love Me Like You Do” where she sings, “You’re the cure, you’re the pain.” You can see the maturity change from over the years through the songs. It’s always fun seeing how people change in different ways especially in their song lyrics. It adds another dimension to the songs and gives more meaning to the lyrics.

Overall, I thought the album was pretty average. It surprised me in some ways while disappointed me in others. It brought some unexpected flourishes while being good background music. It was good, but not “Higher Than Heaven.”

“Higher Than Heaven”: ★★☆☆☆