Barry Allen didn’t try to reinvent folk music, and that’s exactly what makes “Perhaps” so damn good. The London singer-songwriter, working alongside pianist Mike Cliffe in a home studio in Chessington, created an album which was released in April 2021. This album catches Allen at a vulnerable moment, writing through his mother’s illness, and instead of turning away from that pain, he leans into it.
“Perhaps” represents a watershed moment in Allen’s artistic evolution.
Take “Stay,” which might be the emotional centerpiece here. It’s that contradiction that makes the song work. The music lifts while the words ache, creating this beautiful tension that mirrors how we actually experience loss. You want something to stay, even as you feel it leaving.
“Envy” tackles something we all think about but rarely admit: the nagging suspicion that money won’t actually fix us. It’s folk music doing what folk music does best: holding up a mirror without telling you what to see in it. Then there’s “Beautiful Thing,” which addresses the struggle of coming out with real tenderness. Allen is telling a human story about someone trying to be themselves in a world that makes that harder than it should be.
“We’re Here, We’re Queer” takes a different approach, reaching back to 1967’s legalization of homosexual acts in England to tell a bigger story about oppression and fighting back. The song acknowledges pain while celebrating resistance, and it never loses sight of the actual people behind the political progress. “No Time To Dance” and “The Life Of Jesus” round out an album that refuses to stick to one emotional register or thematic lane. Allen moves between the personal and the spiritual, the political and the intimate. Mike Cliffe’s piano work throughout deserves special mention. His classical training shows up in sophisticated arrangements that never overwhelm the songs.
“Perhaps” isn’t certain about anything, and that uncertainty feels more honest than the confident declarations you hear in so much music. If you’re tired of folk music that’s more concerned with sounding pretty than saying something true, “Perhaps” is the album you’ve been waiting for.
Stream “Perhaps” wherever you listen to music, and give it the attention it deserves.
Muse Chronicle 
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