By the time Honest reached Holy Water, my first impression of Zoe’s second album had changed twice. What began with an expansive pop-rock ballad had passed through smoky jazz, bright pop and acoustic restraint before arriving at an ending whose energy caught me completely off guard.

Across eight songs, the alternative-pop artist changes the emotional temperature whenever a mood appears settled. Released six months after Closure, Honest keeps the intimacy of her debut while giving rhythm and structural surprise a larger role.

Pressure arrives by degrees on the opening title track, whose first verse follows a familiar ballad route until Zoe’s delivery begins gathering force and the structure introduces sudden turns. I spent the first listen waiting for the production to announce the climax before realizing that her voice had already taken responsibility for it. Each increase grows from the previous phrase, so the final section carries the history of everything she held back earlier. Somewhere, a Netflix music supervisor will hear that rise and reach for a decisive breakup scene. I replayed it for the patience of Zoe’s climb, since each step leaves a trace in the final section.

My notes beside Lean In contain three words: “modern Twin Peaks jazz.” The track brings a smoky unease into the album and immediately expands its vocabulary beyond the pop-rock frame of the opener. Jazz color, nocturnal pacing and a slightly uncanny atmosphere make it one of the record’s most distinctive turns. Mont Blanc opens the space again through a lyrical ballad setting, giving Zoe room to test the upper limits of her voice. She handles the larger moments with control, and the performance raises the standard for every vocal that follows. These songs sit close together in my memory for opposite reasons: one draws me toward its mystery, while the other depends on emotional exposure.

The album’s brighter section reveals how naturally Zoe can approach mainstream pop while keeping a trace of melancholy in the room. Northern Hues offers the lightest mood here, and its easy lift arrives at the right point after the denser opening stretch. Burn Out has the clearest commercial instincts on the record, driven by an immediate pop shape with sadness adding weight beneath the shine. This was the track I could imagine reaching the widest audience after a single play. Field of Flowers works through charm and melodic warmth, taking a gentler route toward the listener. Its appeal grew across repeat plays as its quieter confidence emerged beside the vocal scale of Mont Blanc.

Grounded came closest to frustrating me, as its semi-acoustic beginning gradually expands toward something epic and creates the expectation of a final opening where the arrangement might reach its full width, yet the song stops at the threshold. I waited for one final release, another vocal push or a broader instrumental conclusion, and the ending kept its distance. The withheld payoff may be part of the design, since the unfinished quality leaves a residue that a conventional climax would clear away. My taste still wanted the door pushed further open. Within an album so skilled at escalation, this is the one moment where restraint begins to resemble hesitation.

Zoe’s voice provides continuity across all these changes, yet the album gains character from the different jobs she gives it. On Honest, it carries accumulating pressure; Lean In places it inside a stranger atmosphere; Mont Blanc asks for range; Burn Out favors direct pop communication. She uses volume as part of the writing, reserving force for moments where the lyric requires a shift in emotional scale. The production occasionally favors polish so heavily that the borders between alternative pop, indie pop and art pop become smoother than the songs themselves. I wanted another track with the peculiar atmosphere of Lean In, or one production decision that could disturb the clean surfaces elsewhere, since Zoe sounds strongest when elegance contains a small risk.

I expected Holy Water to close the album with a solemn ballad. Zoe chooses a livelier rhythm and lets a song about searching for oneself move with genuine energy. Reflection and momentum occupy the same space, while the beat carries hope through the closing section. After the polished accessibility of the middle tracks, this final burst restores motion and sends the album out with its eyes open. The searching continues inside the rhythm, leaving the final minutes active and open-ended.

Across repeated plays, genre labels receded and Zoe’s vocal decisions took over. She adjusts the scale of her performance to each setting, moving through jazz-tinted suspense, bright pop, acoustic intimacy and full-throated release while keeping the album recognizably hers. Six months after Closure, the second record shows a singer willing to test how far her voice can travel across different moods and tempos. I kept returning for that adaptability, since each song asks for a slightly different Zoe, and she meets those demands with increasing assurance. By the end, the title fades behind the voice carrying it.