The Pains of Growing was released three-and-a-half years after
Alessia Cara's first single began a liftoff that led to platinum certifications, multiple Juno awards, and a Grammy. As accolades piled up,
Cara experienced a complete between-albums profile maximization cycle, highlighted by featured appearances on songs by
Zedd and
Logic and a well-synchronized
Disney connection with the
Lin-Manuel Miranda-written theme for Moana.
Cara's second album catches her at a point where she's simultaneously an emergent singer/songwriter and a bankable collaborative pop star.
The Pains of Growing embraces the duality. Having co-written everything on first album
Know-It-All,
Cara wrote an even higher percentage of the material here, including a few songs on her own. She also produces one of the finer ones, the primarily acoustic "I Don't Want To," a bittersweet, conflicted ballad. Pop & Oak co-produced over half of the debut and contribute to several of this album's most appealing songs, from the faintly Jade-echoing "Growing Pains" -- in the relatable anthem vein of "Scars to Your Beautiful" -- to "Trust My Lonely," where
Cara sails off with some sweetly miniaturized digi-dub. Apart from a romantically content soul throwback with
No I.D., through which
Cara displays the increased richness in her voice, the album's remainder employs assorted hit-angling producers connected by pop success with young women. Through it all,
Cara writes in a slightly wiser and sharper manner from the same introverted homebody perspective heard on
Know-It-All. Even the "isolated life on the road" number "Wherever I Live," the album's lone post-fame moment, sounds like it was written by the person who made "Four Pink Walls." ~ Andy Kellman