“When Facing the Things We Turn Away From”: A Luke Hemmings Album Review

Luke Hemmings and 5SOS, the band he helped form in 2011, occupied the majority of my thoughts during my high school years. I was witness to the time when all anybody wanted to argue about was whether One Direction or 5SOS was the better band (I can still offer winning arguments for both sides to this day). Where the latter group was concerned, they ruled the radio for years, sold-out concerts all over the world, and became household names in every teen girl’s mouth. This is why I was so surprised that when Hemmings released his first-ever solo album early last month, he ended up receiving little fanfare or praise in any capacity. I myself hadn’t even realized it was released until a week later, and when I listened to all twelve songs on the tracklist, I couldn’t figure out why more people weren’t gushing about it, let alone discussing it. To me, When Facing the Things We Turn Away From is a gorgeous album, a 70s psych and classic rock-influenced project in the same vein as Harry Styles’s self-titled album from 2017 — but maybe this time the magic isn’t so obvious at first. 

Granted, there’s no getting around the fact that it’s a quiet album, by which I mean that it doesn’t announce itself with slick modern production or even evoke trendy vintage aesthetics. If you’re not paying attention, it’s easy for many of the songs to play as background noise without you noticing. But Hemmings does use the instruments at his disposal beautifully, including drums, guitar, and even a subtle reverb on his vocals. 

One of the best examples of this is the lead single and the album’s first track “Starting Line”, an explosive ode to doubt, renewal, and identity. I love the soft piano at the beginning, the way it builds and grows through the first pre-chorus then elevates itself with drums, guitar, and Hemmings’ extraordinary vocals. I’m fully convinced we’ve never given this track its due, which has since become one of my favourite “tunnel songs”: a perfect song to listen to when you want to feel a little more dramatic and existential than usual, especially at night.

The whole album, in fact, is one I’d characterize as the perfect driving soundtrack, and I’ve played this enough times through the aux cord to prove it. It may not work as a dance record or a set of radio pop anthems but it’s comforting to listen to. It hints at both 5SOS’s pop influences and Hemmings’ more serious vintage rock sensibilities—the kind of music you’d hear over a driving montage in an indie movie. 

So much of the project falls within this same tone but in different exploratory ways. “Saigon” and “Motion” are a little bolder than the tracks they precede, bringing our attention to chord changes in the chorus with a bit of synth and the use of drums to their fullest capacity. 

“Repeat” actually reminded of me the folk sound in Taylor Swift’s evermore, sticking to a minimal production with finger-plucked guitar, violin, and just a hint of echo on Hemmings’s voice. I’ve found this song perfect specifically for writing because it keeps my attention but isn’t active enough that it distracts me from my work. This was also the case for the second to last song “Bloodline”, which completely strips away every instrument except a quiet backing piano to create a gorgeous ballad. 

Oppositely, “Diamonds” invokes outer space, emptiness, feeling smaller than larger-than-life, and the production that mimics the sound of airwaves and static. As well as this, it buries Hemmings’ vocals deep beneath the other layers rather than bump up his volume, which coincides with this feeling to make the song sound both powerful but hopeful, open, and expectant. 

I really do believe that as good as this album was, as beautifully as it could suit an indie movie taking place in winter or fall, it inherently wasn’t prepared for all the other releases last month, and would’ve been better received later in the year. But no matter what time it is, what week or month, When Facing the Things We Turn Away From is the kind of an album I can’t stop telling others about, that I can’t stop listening to, whether in the background of my work or on my romanticizing-my-life-for-no-reason days, the one I regret not having heard about sooner.