Essence Martins lays her heart bare on ‘Red Velvet,’ a beautifully understated meditation on first heartbreak and the quiet grief that follows when someone who once knew you better than anyone else slowly becomes a stranger. Built around delicate acoustic guitar and produced with a gentle touch, the track leaves plenty of space for Essence’s stunning vocal to take centre stage, offering another glimpse of her remarkable ability to make vulnerability feel universal.

Some of the lyrics are genuinely goosebump-inducing, made even more powerful by Essence’s dreamy, intimate delivery. Gorgeous harmonies drift effortlessly through the stripped-back arrangement, creating a song that feels both painfully raw and softly nostalgic at the same time. It’s the kind of heartbreak that lingers long after the relationship has ended, not through dramatic outbursts, but in the quiet moments where memories unexpectedly resurface.

The accompanying visualiser perfectly mirrors that fragile atmosphere, placing Essence alone inside a glass box in a moonlit field, illuminated by the warm glow of a red lamp. Reflecting on the song, she explains: “It’s kind of like a grief that you feel even though they’re physically still here in the flesh.” She also describes ‘Red Velvet’ as being about “reminiscing, regret and how memory can distort the past,” adding that we often remember relationships through “rose-tinted glasses.” It’s a sentiment that feels painfully relatable, making ‘Red Velvet’ a quietly devastating portrait of love, loss and the memories that never quite let us go.