Lily Allen’s West End Girl is an unflinching postmortem of her failed marriage

Jealousy, pain, and humour; Lily Allen’s return to the studio after seven years away is a brutal recounting of the collapse of a marriage.

No wonder Lily has ‘no hard feelings’ after her divorce from David Harbour; she’s left it all in this break-up album to end all break-up albums.

West End Girl is said to be ‘inspired’ by personal experiences in her life and is autofictional – but it’s unlikely her ex-husband will walk away from this release unscathed in the public eye.

Payments for sex, cheating, lies, vasectomies, sex addiction, and ‘Madeline’, Lily unleashed five years of hurt in one deeply narrative album.

Starting with the title track, she leads us into a dreamy state, wide-eyed and loved-up as she buys a house with this man who pushes for the white picket-fence life.

However, that fairytale quickly begins to fall away, resulting in one of the most brutal album openers ever, with almost half the track taken up by a call in which her husband asks to sleep with other women.

Lily then whisks us away to London with the next song, Ruminating, calling on a dance beat and vocal distortion to paint a vivid picture of someone tossing and turning.

It’s unlikely anyone will pay much attention to the melodies with how utterly soulbaring the lyrics are, but Lily isn’t giving us a one-trick pop pony here.

She weaves dance, funk, and even Spanish guitar throughout the album, showing off how she has developed as an artist in the time she’s been away.

In one way, it’s a shame her musical comeback will be so shrouded in her very public breakup, as it’s unlikely any particular tracks with break free of the album as a whole.

But Lily isn’t new to this game. If you’re going to make an album which will be plagued by your personal life, make it as pointed and savage as this.

‘You won’t love me/ You won’t leave me/ You don’t touch me/ Still so needy,’ she sings on Sleepwalking, stating there’s been no romance since the wedding.

Twisting the knife in, she describes being gaslit into believing the problems were all her before launching into Tennis, where she discovers there is another woman.

Then comes a song that left my jaw on the floor, Madeline.

‘We had an arrangement/ Be discreet, and don’t be blatant/ There had to be payment/ It had to be with strangers/ But you’re not a stranger, Madeline.’

In the context of her relationship with the Stranger Things actor, the truth is hardly a jump away after reports he was seeing another woman for most of their relationship.

Lily documents a very modern situation, confronting the other woman over the phone, who assures her there’s nothing more going on.

Then comes the kicker: ‘I’m not convinced that he didn’t f**k you in our house’.

The house, which he pushes for in West End Girl, where she is raising her children, has become the site of this violation.

Still blaming herself, Lily describes feeling old and ugly compared to this woman, before launching into Relapse.

Don’t let the electronic sound distract you – this is one of the most truly heartwrenching numbers on the album.

Stranded alone ‘across the ocean’ from her family and wondering how she can be a good role model for her daughters, Lily laments that she ‘needs a drink’.

The Not Fair hitmaker has been sober since July 2019, a few months after she first met David, now driven to drink by the demise of the relationship.

From here, she is confronted more brutally by ‘butt plugs and lube’ at his flat in the West Village, questioning if he is a ‘sex addict’ with a ‘double life’.

While there are some great quips here, this chapter of the story is the weakest until you arrive at Just Enough, which hints there may have been an abortion involved.

After a few more chart-friendly tracks, Lily delivers her final blows in Let You W/in and Fruityloop, calling him a child and defiantly refusing to ‘absorb his shame’.

Ultimately, if you came here for the music, you’re likely to feel a little underwhelmed by Lily’s return to the studio, as it rarely hits the chart highs of her early work.

West End Girl is a record that deserves to be played front to back, then repeated, then devoured once more, but it’s not one you’re likely to go back to once the juicy drama has been picked clean.

The bones are good, but this is a modern romance for a modern age, which I’m not convinced has the capacity to be timeless.

Lily Allen’s West End Girl is out now.

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