Kelsey Lu’s So Help Me God rejects tidy certainty

After scoring award-winning films, working across galleries, and collaborating with artists from Beverly Glenn-Copeland to Jamie xx, Kelsey Lu returns to songwriting with So Help Me God. The album unfolds like a devotional refusal to resolve everything—gliding

Kelsey Lu used to open records with ambition that spilled outward—long tracks that acted like a thesis in sound. With So Help Me God, the ambition is still there, but the feeling is different. It arrives not as an argument for how music should behave. but as a decision to stay inside the messy part of being human: uncertainty. slowness. and the stubborn lack of resolution.

Lu’s return to songwriting has the weight of a homecoming. but not the kind that closes the door behind you. Since 2019’s Blood. Lu has kept busy—scoring award-winning films. working across galleries. and collaborating with musicians ranging from Beverly Glenn-Copeland to Jamie xx. That detour mattered. It taught them that composition could move quickly. Going back to writing songs, Lu says, meant having to sit with what doesn’t settle.

“While many things can serve as beautiful guides. ” Lu recently said. “I believe that. at our core. we are made from beauty and love. Being able to return to that source feels deeply important. especially now.” On So Help Me God. those qualities don’t arrive as a clean moral. They spill out with painstaking precision. even as Lu—classically trained cellist. and therefore a perfectionist—resists turning the record into something linear and fully solved.

Instead, the album slides from “burning desire” to “volcanic gaseous tremblings” with an emotional logic that doesn’t ask permission. Track by track, it keeps its own tempo of feeling, letting collaborators amplify the motion without ever sanding Lu into something predictable.

The journey begins with “Reaper,” an eight-minute song that immediately displays the hybrid ambitions Lu is known for. Its billowing haze finds an equilibrium not just between Lu’s musical instincts and their collaborators. but between multiple kinds of musical presence at once. As soft instrumentation builds, there are echoes of Clairo’s Sling in Jack Antonoff’s production. If “A&W” is any indication. the (admittedly way more muted) drum machine feels like it was Antonoff’s idea. too.

Yet the track doesn’t simply borrow sparkle—it sways with Yves Rothman’s drum programming and synths. Kamasi Washington’s saxophone effectively duets with Lu’s ethereal voice, turning breath into counter-melody. Kim Gordon’s contribution is described as almost imperceptible, but it lands anyway as a quiet flex. The most striking detail might be the vocal production itself: it oscillates in temperature as the word “you” keeps changing shapes during the final stretch.

That same refusal to let desire become tidy returns on “Portrait of a Lady on Fire.” The song’s two opening words are “burning desire. ” and the references don’t stop there. Lu wonders aloud if the yearning is reciprocated. Meanwhile, Lu’s cello taps into unspoken depth, while Spencer Zahn’s bow bass fills out the low end. The voice moves from a languorous simmer to nerve-fried intensity. circling the phrase “only for you” as though repetition might be the only honest response.

On “What Can I Do,” Lu stretches the spectral realm of want a little longer. Atmospheric synths gather, then are grounded by beautifully mixed acoustic guitars, giving the song a pastoral, domestic gravity. The lyrics make the subtext do the work: “When we are alone/ I feel I can call this home. ” Lu sings. “But I wouldn’t ever tell you so/ I’d hope you’d just read between the lines.” On this track. the line between what’s spoken and what’s meant never fully hardens.

The album’s first major letting-go comes with “Running to Pain.” This is described as Lu’s biggest release of the record’s sense of release. and also as a perfect pop song in the context of the album. but equally compelling on its own. Antonoff’s melodic touch is front and center. Even more persuasive is how it matches the aching fluidity of Lu’s vocals—carrying the pain mourned on the opener rather than replacing it.

Then the song-life turns toward “Comfort.” The track alternates between lilting verses and a radiant chorus that’s described as flying too close to the sun. or. as Lu puts it. “in the cradle of fire.” Sam Stewart’s electric guitar mirrors that heat. Lu sings about “too many voices in my head. ” but the vocals aren’t filtered or layered as theatrically as on other songs. Instead, they’re swallowed into the instrumentation—strings, percussion, and brass parts from Casey MQ.

Midway through, “American Sonnet” changes the texture. As Lu’s piano grieves. trembles. and squeaks over delicate piano. the track feels like a brief instrumental interlude dividing the album in half. It quickly proves to be a centerpiece instead. The song unravels a poem by Wanda Coleman (with half the credit). delivering a spine-tingling performance described as writhing. nature-bound. and unmistakably Björkish. Eerie details in the background gradually gain mass until a drum beat arrives, courtesy of Jack Antonoff.

“852” then makes the contrast hard to ignore. Where “American Sonnet” leans into poetic abstraction, “852” sits on the other side emotionally. The narrator’s devotion is selfless and all-consuming, leaving little room for uncertainty about the relationship. What remains is a dark void—something Lu can only crumble toward. “I love to hang on to the pain. ” Lu reminds listeners. stretching the final word to its extreme as a hushed groove echoes over Zahn’s rippling piano.

On “Only the Lonely,” Lu projects some blame outward. The song declares, “I disagree with the way that you loved me/ I must’ve known that you wasn’t a homie.” Ari Baptiste’s frenetic programming, though, distracts from the core of the track, making it feel slightly undercooked.

Late in the record. “Better Than That” brings back stately balladry—again drawing a line back to “American Sonnet”—before veering into a lighter direction that remains just as sublime. Over a finger-snapping beat. Lu’s vocal feels unburdened. following their inner voice as it becomes almost interchangeable with that of Sampha. That kinship is traced back to Lu’s cover of Joni Mitchell’s “River.” “What’s better than rest?” Lu asks. and the album makes the question feel like it lands exactly on the moment it’s asked.

So help me god doesn’t fully let go, either. “Cutting Off the Head of the Ghost” soars one more time—drunkenly. in the record’s own language—and brings Antonoff back into the fold. His electric guitar adds heft, and the song includes an Italian children’s choir. The titular line delivers a punchy chorus that’s described as the most defiant moment in Lu’s discography. “This is the place where all the lives are planted in my eyes. ” Wanda Coleman begins. and for a moment at least. that place becomes New York. Then life, in So Help Me God, continues to blur: through its eyes, every home merges like a choir.

Taken as a whole. So Help Me God keeps returning to the same tension—beauty and love as a guiding source. and yet no insistence that feeling must resolve itself into something tidy. Lu’s classically trained cello and perfectionist instincts are still present. but they’re being used in the service of restraint. The record doesn’t chase closure. It makes room for the burn.

Kelsey Lu So Help Me God album review Jack Antonoff Kim Gordon Sampha Wanda Coleman Kamasi Washington Celine Sciamma Björkish reference Joni Mitchell River