Jacob Alon doesn’t shout to be heard — they just speak, and somehow you feel it in your chest.
The Scottish singer-songwriter’s debut album In Limerence, out now via Island Records, doesn’t try to impress you with big statements or heavy production. Instead, it invites you into something far more intimate, a collection of songs about queer love, romantic disorientation, and the quiet resilience that comes from being deeply misunderstood.
At 24, Jacob is already writing with the kind of emotional clarity that most artists spend years trying to reach, and they’re doing it on their own terms.
A Little Backstory
Jacob grew up in Dunfermline, a city framed by forests and the North Sea, and that natural backdrop filters subtly through their music. It’s not overplayed or whimsical, more like a quiet atmosphere that lingers around the edges.
Before music, they tried a more traditional route: studying theoretical physics and medicine at Edinburgh University. It didn’t stick. After dropping out, Jacob moved to London, had what they now describe as a breakdown, and eventually returned to Scotland to pursue songwriting full-time.
They lived in a van, toured Edinburgh’s folk scene, and began writing what would become In Limerence. That sense of wandering, trying, failing, and starting again — it’s everywhere on the record.
What In Limerence Sounds Like
This is not an album that rushes to get your attention. It doesn’t need to. The arrangements are spare, often just guitar and voice, with occasional experimental textures added by producer Dan Carey (known for his work with Fontaines D.C. and Kae Tempest).
There’s space here — for lyrics to land, for breath, for reflection.
Songs like:
- “Confession” explore the devastation of an ex pretending a relationship never existed. It’s raw, but never dramatic.
- “Liquid Gold 25” critiques the soul-numbing experience of queer dating apps — “This is where love comes to die,” Jacob sings, flatly.
- “Fairy In A Bottle” plays with the danger of idealising a partner to the point of losing sight of who they really are.
Across the album, Jacob threads in ideas of mythology, memory, and emotional projection — asking what happens when the version of someone you fall for only exists in your head.
“Sometimes you cling to dreams so tightly that you lose sight of the magic of the real world.”
– Jacob Alon
Vulnerability Without Performance
What sets In Limerence apart is how it handles vulnerability. Jacob doesn’t dramatise the pain, they let it sit quietly, which makes it even more affecting. This isn’t trauma-as-aesthetic. It’s the lived experience of someone who’s moved through shame, silence, and survival — and come out the other side, not with closure, but with a voice.
There’s a balance between the poetic and the plainspoken that few debut records manage. The lyrics feel diaristic but crafted. Nothing is oversung. Nothing is overexplained.
And while the album deals openly with queer identity, it doesn’t centre it as spectacle. It’s simply part of the emotional reality of the songs, integrated, authentic, and refreshingly unfiltered.
In Limerence isn’t trying to be trendy. It’s not built for algorithmic playlists. It’s a record that asks for your attention, slowly earns it, and then lingers long after it’s done.
It’s a debut that shows real vision, not just in sound, but in perspective. And if Jacob Alon keeps writing like this, they won’t be Scotland’s best-kept secret for long.
Jacob Alon’s In Limerence Instores Tour is the perfect chance to hear the album in the setting it was made for — up close, personal, and uninterrupted. With stops in Glasgow (31 May, Strip Joint Records), Edinburgh (1 June, Assai), and Liverpool (3 June, Rough Trade), these shows offer a rare opportunity to experience the album in full, just days after its release. For anyone who’s connected with the record, or is about to, this is the moment to hear it exactly as Jacob intended, in a room full of people who are feeling it too.
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