When I hit play on Nicole, I’m transported back to high school. Not my high school, though- I’m taken back to this dreamy portrait of youth Niki Zefanya paints with her album where I’m a teenager experiencing her first love and heartbreak with her high school sweetheart.

The album opens with Before, my favourite track off of the album, which tells you from the get-go that this relationship doesn’t last. This story is all about what could have been, what it was like before, and what it will never be again.

Beginning with the end of the story cleverly introduces all the motifs- age differences, infidelity, October and grief- to listeners. It ties in perfectly with the album closer, Take A Chance With Me, the only happy song that speaks about the beginning stages of the relationship. Getting a glimpse of the sweetness at the album’s end before it all withered away makes it the perfect closer.

My favourite theme on Nicole is the significance of October where the relationship seemingly started and ended.

The ninth track, Autumn, is the most obvious reference to this. Its powerful bridge steals the spotlight with lyrics like, You know all my dreams, you were one, so it seemed, that put it as my second favourite track. October is weaved in quietly throughout the album in the form of Halloween as mentioned in High School in Jakarta and Before. 

Nicole is rich with yearning for a better ending. You can feel the autumn chill wrap around you when the melancholic guitar of Milk Teeth plays.

The hollowness of The Apartment We Won’t Share echoes in my room when the song’s acoustic melody reminds me of where I could have been if things had been different.

There are breakup songs and there are breakup stories. Nicole coalesces the two, crafting an album I return to whenever I need a gentle reminder that wishing for a better ending doesn’t diminish the love that occurred before it.