James Crowley refuses the easy version of love on new EP 'Imprint'

There's a line at the centre of James Crowley's 'Imprint' that destabilises everything around it: "If I'm honest, I'm never honest". It's an unusually effective summary of an EP exploring all the ways people hide, inherit, repeat and occasionally escape the patterns that shape their relationships.

Across four wondrous tracks, the London singer-songwriter examines queer love without reducing it to either celebration or trauma. Desire, family, intimacy and identity are allowed to remain complicated, while he repeatedly asks whether the behaviours we carry into relationships are really choices or simply marks left by everything that came before.

The title-track is its clearest expression. Soft guitar, close harmonies and gradually expanding piano leave plenty of room for his voice as he considers the difference between the life imagined and the one actually lived. His admission of withholding parts of himself is presented simply as behaviour learned through family dynamics, unhealthy relationships and the pressures experienced by queer people attempting to fit expectations that were never designed for them.

Elsewhere, 'Co-Pilot' and 'I Wish I Could Just Do Something' broaden that emotional territory, before '(Am I) Strong Enough' leaves the EP with the question that has been sitting with him throughout.

Musically, this is also his most expansive work to date. His indie-folk foundations remain essential, but collaborating with Wolf Alice drummer Joel Amey introduces a stronger rhythmic urgency, while Mike Horner's production allows the songs to grow without overwhelming their intimacy. Folk textures, indie-rock momentum and flashes of contemporary pop begin occupying the same space, creating something bigger than his earlier material while still preserving the vulnerability that makes the writing convincing.

'Imprint' could easily have become overly analytical given the ideas behind it, but it never sounds like he's solved himself and returned with a lesson for everybody else. Instead, the songs capture the much messier stage where recognition has begun but change remains difficult.

For an EP built around the marks we inherit, its most hopeful idea is that an imprint doesn't have to become a blueprint.