An all-consuming eruption of smoldering pop and seductive soul, Dhruv’s debut album ‘Private Blizzard’ is a beautifully intimate record of heartbreak and humanity – of loving and losing, but never giving up hope in the promise, the power, and the beauty of love.
Stream: “Tragedy” – Dhruv
Like I needed remindin’ – this life is poetry without the rhymin’…
At the end of the day, aren’t we all in our own ‘private blizzards’?
Each of us is a soul in a sea of souls, just trying to maintain our balance, hold our heads up, and keep calm in a world so filled with chaos and cruelty, randomness and turmoil. Dhruv’s debut album may tell his story and bear his perspective, but it reflects all our lives as well: An intimate, enchanting eruption of smoldering pop and seductive soul, Private Blizzard is a record of heartbreak and humanity; of trying to find our voice, and our place, in a busy, blurry, bustling world.
See, I’m tryin’ not to think about it, but I always do
Playin’ out thе scene in my head on an еndless loop
Feelin’ like the main character, but in my own tragedy
Why’d you do this to me, do this to me?
You said you found someone,
and you left my beatin’ heart on the floor
You said you found someone,
and I told you that I’m happy on my own
But I’m not, why’d you do this to me?
– “Tragedy,” Dhruv
Released August 23, 2024 via Little Worry / RCA Records, Private Blizzard is a storm of sweet songwriting and spellbinding singing. Arriving two years after his debut EP rapunzel put him on the mainstream map, Dhruv’s debut album showcases the London-born, Singaporean-based artist’s full range of talents as he bares his heart and soul for all to see, hear, and feel.
“I started writing this album shortly after I put out my last project in early 2022,” Dhruv Sharma – who, since 2019, has released music mononymously as ‘Dhruv’ – tells Atwood Magazine. “The album covers years 23 and 24 of my life, which were turbulent in many ways. I wrote a lot of it in London, Los Angeles, and New York, but ultimately recorded the whole thing in Nashville. My main collaborator was the very talented JT Daly, and he assembled a ‘band’ of unbelievable Nashville musicians who played on almost every track on the album.”
“I knew I wanted to make something live,” Dhruv adds. “It felt like the right pivot after the first mixtape, which was much more DIY and electronic. I was also listening to a lot of great 2000s British soul albums like 21 by Adele and Rockferry by Duffy, so I was gravitating toward making something more soulful in general. Still, JT encouraged me to create today’s version of that and helped me strike the right balance of classic and current. He brought in a lot of the elements that gave the album its modernity.”
“I’d like to think it introduces me as an artist who takes risks. The safer thing to do would have probably been to make music along the lines of my first mixtape, which found commercial success. Sonically, this project couldn’t be more different from that. At the same time, I think it stays true to my confessional and very diaristic style of writing.”
Now that I’m over the hardest part
I sit by myself, turn the TV on,
and I think about it all
Years down the drain, almost overnight
So easily rinsed me out your life like
Damn, you’re wasting no time
Found yourself somebody new at the speed of light
Said “A first love is forever”
when you kissed me goodbye
That was quick, that was quick
Moving at the speed of light
That was quick, that was quick
Guess I didn’t cross your mind
Shame I didn’t cross your mind
Dhruv candidly describes Private Blizzard as intense, confessional, and messy.
The album’s title “describes the contrast between the writing style of the record (very intimate) versus the sound of it (maximal),” he explains. “It also describes the process of making it – I would spend a lot of time writing in coffee shops and public places and would often be in a ‘private blizzard’ in my little corner.”
Highlights abound throughout the journey from bookends “Ode to Boredom” to “One and Only” (both of which are phenomenal tracks in their own right), as Dhruv spills the contents of his heavy, hurting heart out in twelve songs – each one another beautiful expression of raw, unrequited love and desire, longing, restlessness, loneliness, and so on. He sings of feeling lost and off-track in the slick neo-soul serenade “California Winter” (“I’m not feeling like myself, I’ve been going through some hell, out from underneath her spell”), of longing intensely and relentlessly on “Any Day” (“Any day, I tell myself before midnight strikes, dark blue stains, all on my palms and all in my mind, yeah, I wait and hold out for a God given sign”), and succumbs to loneliness, letting his sadness take over in the heartrending “Lonely City Waltz”:
Lonely city waltz, table just for one
I watch the world go by from my corner
Lonely city waltz, ghost to everyone
Got nowhere else to be
So I wander, wander
“I started in a place of numbness, and I didn’t really understand why I felt that way,” Dhruv says of writing this album. “The songs that I started out with were trying to help me unpack that feeling. The further along I got, I started feeling better – I just felt lighter.”
Of special note on this album in particular are its four singles “Tragedy,” “Speed of Light,” “Grieving,” and “How?” – each of which is a dramatic wondrous, aching, and breathtaking world unto itself. Commercial singles are often meant to be the “hooks” that lure people in and get them interested in the full record, and while these songs (and their combined 8+ million streams) certainly accomplish that, they are also home to some of Dhruv’s most vulnerable vocal performances – as well as his most passionate and immersive songwriting.
“Writing ‘Tragedy’ was the first time I made something that I feel has my stamp on it,” Dhruv shared when he first released the record’s upbeat and brooding lead single earlier this year. “It was the first song we finished for my album, and it became a natural entry point into the world of my upcoming record. ‘Tragedy’ feels like it could be a blueprint for things that I’m going to make in the future. If you read the lyrics, it could seem like a drag. But we spent a lot of time trying to make a song that feels more like a wink, more ironic than depressing or sad. I’m really proud of how I was able to turn an experience that was flat-out miserable into something that’s kind of funny.”
For his part, Dhruv cites one of the album’s softer tracks as his personal favorite. “I’m a sucker for ballads,” he smiles. “I have a special place in my heart for ‘Daggers.’” His favorite lyrics are those lines that feel extra intimate, and yet instantly relatable: “I’m learning the things I’ve always known” from “Illusions,” and “Even sleep is exhausting” from “Grieving.”
Piccadilly Circus
I thought I passed you on the way home
Remember I was nervous
First time we went to dinner
Memories are stray bullets
They wound my frail subconscious
Even sleep is exhausting oh
Oh I’m learning how to move ahead
Learning how to grow
Learning how to lead
Life without you, friend
Whether you’re drawn to this album for the raw display of heartache, the catchy pop songwriting, or Dhruv’s soulful, seductive singing, Private Blizzard promises to inspire and enchant all who listen.
Dhruv’s debut album is a balm for the broken-hearted – a soothing salve for weary souls. Its songs may hurt – in fact, they hurt quite a bit – but from his moments of darkness, the artist has found his own inner light. It’s a light that shines bright across ballads and anthems alike; a light that aches with the scars of loving and losing, but never giving up hope in the promise, the power, and the beauty of love.
“I needed to make these songs,” Dhruv shares. “They were friends that held my hand through some of the turbulent moments in the last couple of years. I hope people find a similar sense of comfort in them during their messier moments.”
Experience the full record via our below stream, and peek inside Dhruv’s Private Blizzard with Atwood Magazine as he goes track-by-track through the music and lyrics of his debut album!
Private Blizzard is out now via via Little Worry / RCA Records.
— —
:: stream/purchase Private Blizzard here ::
:: connect with Dhruv here ::
Stream: ‘Private Blizzard’ – Dhruv
:: Inside Private Blizzard ::
— —
Ode to Boredom
Written during a phase where I had no romantic prospects and my life was falling into a predictable routine. This feels like a perfect opener because it immediately subverts any expectations listeners might have about the album.
California Winter
To me, this song is about moving away and feeling you’ve left a part of yourself behind somewhere. It also pokes fun at some of the things I didn’t love about my brief stint in California.
How?
Sensing someone’s attention is fading and trying to do everything you can to keep them interested. Gets increasingly frantic. Could apply to anything but I wrote it about my experience with virality.
Tragedy
Recounts an embarrassing reunion I had with an ex. I remember leaving this specific interaction thinking it was something out of a sitcom. Months later, when I sat down to write a song about it, I decided that “feeling like the main character in a tragedy” was a more dramatic and compelling way to describe it.
Grieving
Explores the idea of a breakup through the lens of grief. The strangeness of mourning someone who is alive.
Lonely City Waltz
I made this album in Nashville, a city I’d never been to. There were many post-studio evenings I found myself with nothing to do and no one to meet. This loneliness inspired a poem that eventually inspired the song.
Speed of Light
It’s about “losing the breakup”. Realizing that someone moved on much quicker than you did and trying to unpack what that might have meant about their feelings towards you.
Any Day
It started from a weird pitch-bend chord progression I came up with on my keyboard. It’s a song about longing for something. I’ll let you guess the subject of that longing.
Daggers
I was really hurt by someone who I trusted and found myself unable to shake it off a year after the fact. Writing this song gave me the closure I was looking for.
The Morning
The barest song on Private Blizzard. It’s about seeking someone’s company as a distraction. It’s asking them to stay with you so you don’t go to that dark place in your head.
Illusions
This is a mantra to myself. Reminding myself not to make the same mistakes I keep making.
One and Only
The flute solo is maybe my favorite thing on the entire album. Inspired by my life of course, but also by iconic “airport” scenes in rom-coms when the protagonist confesses their feelings just before their lover’s flight is about to take off.
— —
:: stream/purchase Private Blizzard here ::
:: connect with Dhruv here ::
— — — —
Connect to Dhruv on
Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram
Discover new music on Atwood Magazine
© Stefan Kohli
© Stefan KohliPrivate Blizzard
an album by Dhruv
