If youโve ever wanted proof that Black girls donโt just bend genres, they can build entire universes out of glitter, nerves, and cosmic-level imagination, then look no further! Hemlock Springsโ debut album,The Apple Under the Sea, arrives like a kaleidoscope prophecy.
Hemlocke Springs, who first rocketed into the spotlight with her delightfully unhinged TikTok hit โgirlfriend,โ fully leans into her reputation as popโs resident eccentric genius. Drawing on her religious Nigerian-American upbringing and her love of theatrical world-building, sheโs crafted a concept album that feels like an epic fable of self-discovery. The loose narrative follows a wandering protagonist who stumbles upon a red apple, unlocking a journey of identity, rebellion, and liberation. Each track is a new experience for the listener, and the album as a whole is emotional, chaotic, spiritual, and low-key hilarious.
With co-producer BURNS helping shape the sound, Springs blends 80s sparkle, electronic jitters, and the kind of melodic curveballs only a proudly weird Black girl would dare to throw. Some critics are already praising Springโs for the albumโs boldness, but it really hits different when youโre part of the community thatโs been carving out space for Black alt expression long before it was trendy.
Across ten tracks, Springs turns anxiety, curiosity, and self-reinvention into something danceable, theatrical, deeply Black in its refusal to shrink or conform.
The albumโs introductory track, โthe red apple,โ is haunting and ethereal as Springโs describes her feelings of moving away from her religious upbringing. Whereas โthe beginning of the endโ and the frantic โhead, shoulders, knees, and anklesโ turn real-life anxiety and overthinking into energetic pop explosions. โW-w-w-w-wโ offers a softer, dreamy domestic moment that reflects Springโs uncertainty about adulthood and intimacy before โsever the blightโ drags the album into a dramatic, darker, and moodier territory. In this turning point track, the โblightโ represents fears, expectations, and inherited beliefs, especially those tied to her religious upbringing. The โsense isโ duo towards the end of the album serves as a nostalgic interlude, complete with playground ambience that feels like an attempt to reconnect with childhood innocence and who you were before the world tried to edit you. By the end, The Apple Tree Under the Sea stands as a surreal, self-aware, joyfully strange debut. It firmly places Hemlocke Springs in the lineage of Black artists who make their own worlds and invite the rest of us to get weird with them, proving that sheโs not just in the alt lane, sheโs tearing it up. Just like a certified Alt Darling should.