Halsey surprised fans on Friday (Sept. 15) when they revealed that they are hard at work on their fifth album, the first record under a new contract with Columbia Records.
“not pictured: me splitting myself in two everyday so that I can give you my deepest wounds (and a handful of perfect joys) for the 5th time in 10 years,” the singer wrote alongside a picture in which they are standing in front of a painting in a long black skirt and black crop top.
At press time Halsey didn’t provide any additional information on the album’s release date or track list and the accompanying pic post mostly featured what appeared to be scenes from the 28-year-old “So Good” star’s private life.
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The snaps included a picture of a spider in a web, a group of young men with their skateboards on the roof of a building, a dish of pasta, footage from an unnamed concert, a snap of someone packaging dried flowers, a few selfies, a short video of Halsey laying on a couch and laughing while watching The Last Airbender animated film (like the other videos, it had no sound) and a picture of an elaborate LEGO house.
Halsey signed a new recording contract with Columbia Records in June after parting ways with their longtime label home Capitol Records after eight years. They released their first four albums on Capitol, dating to their 2015 debut, Badlands, on its Astralwerks imprint. Capitol also released 2017’s Hopeless Fountain Kingdom, which reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200, as well as 2020’s Manic and 2021’s collaboration with Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power.
The break with Capitol came a year after Halsey appeared to call the label out for not releasing their single, “So Good,” until, “they can fake a viral moment on TikTok.” In May, Halsey wrote on Tumblr that they were “hard at work” on new music.
Halsey re-worked her If I Can’t Have Love song “Lilith (Diablo IV Anthem)” with BTS‘ Suga as part of the latest installment of Blizzard Entertainment’s Diablo IV video game in June. At the time, she told Billboard, “Collaborating with Suga on a project that revolves around our mutual admiration for dark mythology has been a longstanding dream of mine. ‘SUGA’s Interlude,’ our previous collaboration, while introspective, is pretty whimsical in tone. Together, we were able to infuse the anthem with intricate narratives that encompass a wider range of emotions I wouldn’t have been able to tell without him. He added a whole new perspective to the song. Plus, it was just honestly really cool to do something so badass with my friend.”
Check out Halsey’s new album tease below.