Suitcase Child (2026)
Suitcase Child isn’t a debut so much as a confession with a tracklist. ISE is 19 years old and Belgian, and she has written an album about her parents’ divorce with the kind of unflinching specificity that most artists spend a career working up to. She doesn’t ease you in. She hands you the driveways, the weekend houses, the Monday night packing, and trusts you to feel the weight of them without explanation.
The record opens with Powerless, an atmospheric tone-setter. The acoustic picking is eerie and spacey, but it’s the grunge-like strain in ISE’s vocals that anchors the track. A study in controlled pain. Remember? doesn’t let the mood settle. The energy lifts but the ache stays put, the vocal range shifting seamlessly from gritty desperation to an angelic falsetto.
Kid provides the first major energy shift. A driving alt-pop banger with crashing electric guitars and a restless bassline. The sound of the narrator finally moving, rather than just observing. Driveway pulls it back to the floor. What sets it apart from standard singer-songwriter fare is the delivery. It sounds lived-in. Experienced.
The centerpiece of the record’s intensity is Just a Lie. It flirts with growth, building tension through darker chords until the cinematic orchestration crashes in. The sustain in the chorus is a technical high point, soaring in a way that demands you feel the weight of the betrayal being described. Held You Longer follows, piano-led and necessary. A breath of heartbreak that earns its place after the preceding aggression.
When You Are Around is the record’s outright rocker, led by an emotive guitar lick that proves ISE and her band aren’t afraid to lean heavier. Empty House doesn’t waste the momentum. It just redirects it, before the title track earns the centrepiece position it’s been given. With shuffling snares and military builds, Suitcase Child spends its runtime in constant motion, much like the three-year-old it describes.
Homesick closes the record the only way it could. Quietly. Acoustically. Like the last thing you pack before you leave a house for good. ISE won De Nieuwe Lichting at 17, played Rock Werchter at 18, and has now delivered a debut that justifies every bit of it. Suitcase Child doesn’t ask for your attention. It already has it.
