What I like about Somewhere Between Leaving is that it never feels like an album trying to manufacture emotion. With this release, Citizen Smith embraces something much harder to create: honesty. The album deliberately avoids perfection and ends up feeling more alive because of it. The band’s approach centers on genuine emotion over polish, creating music that is “melancholic but happy, painful but beautiful.”
At its core, this is an album about time. Not in a dramatic or overly nostalgic way, but in the ordinary way people actually experience it. Losses, relationships, memories, change. The band wanted to create something that reflects life as it happens rather than turning it into a neatly packaged story. That idea runs through all thirteen tracks.
There are moments where Citizen Smith leans into classic pop songwriting. Tracks like “Superman” and “Summer Magazine” clearly showcase that instinct. But what I appreciate is that the album refuses to stay there. It opens itself to quieter moments too, the songs that feel less like singles and more like snapshots.
That becomes especially clear on tracks like “Considered,” “Wine Bottles,” and “Afterglow,” which were recorded in single takes with imperfections intentionally left untouched. Those choices matter because you can hear the humanity in them. They feel less performed and more lived.
The recording process also plays a huge role. Ten tracks were recorded at Sickroom Studios in Norfolk, while others came together at bassist Bob’s home studio. The emphasis on analogue recording and allowing everyone to simply play what felt right gives the album a looseness that works in its favor. Even the vocals were recorded in single takes because the band didn’t want to “paste together emotion.”
You can hear traces of influences like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Velvet Underground, alongside broader West Coast sounds, but they never dominate. They sit in the background as reference points while Citizen Smith shapes something that feels personal. For me, Somewhere Between Leaving succeeds because it accepts imperfection instead of hiding from it.
It’s warm, reflective, and full of small human moments. And those moments are exactly what give it life.
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