Sam Smith Releases New Single "When He's Gone" Ahead of HAZEL EYES Album
The soulful acoustic track marks the singer's third preview of the forthcoming Capitol Records release.
Sam Smith has released When He's Gone, the third single from the upcoming album HAZEL EYES, due out August 21 via Capitol Records. The song is built on a soulful acoustic groove that builds to a crescendo, addressing the fear of losing someone who has become central to one's life.
In its raw opening moments, 'When He's Gone' can't help but evoke the warmth and depth of Bill Withers (whom Sam covered on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert last year). But as they paint a vivid picture — 'Hate it when you speak to me, with cruel and careless words / Everything you say to me, can't you see it hurts?' — the music unfurls, too, incorporating ghostly backing vocals and the starkly epic atmosphere of old Western cinema. Against that backdrop, the chorus conveys a soul-deep torment: 'When he's walking out on me, he takes everything I need / My whole world's broken when he's gone.'
'This album explores every shade of a relationship and 'When He's Gone' is more of a melancholy shade,' says Sam. 'We captured it live without a click track and built everything around that original recording to preserve the feeling of a storm rumbling in the distance.'
Sam covered The New York Times' Arts & Leisure section on Sunday, and spoke extensively of the open-hearted creative origins and deeply personal inspirations behind their forthcoming fifth studio album. The newspaper credited Hazel Eyes' with having 'a more handcrafted sound' and wrote that 'Smith has a new clarity and confidence,' all of which comes through on each of the singles released thus far.
HAZEL EYES will arrive via Capitol Records, with When He's Gone following two previously released singles from the project.
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