Five years of silence, ten tracks – and one damn precise question: what do you do when you’ve finally become the “adult” you’ve been walking toward for so long?
For Alisan Porter, it’s especially fitting. Child star of “Curly Sue,” Broadway actress, singer, songwriter, winner of the tenth season of The Voice – behind this façade has always beaten a living, vulnerable soul. In the fall of 2026, she released “PORTER” – her fifth studio album: ten songs, 35 minutes of very personal, luminous, trembling music in the spirit of cozy country-Americana. Though, honestly, genre labels are powerless here. For me, it’s a sincere, very tender heart-to-heart conversation. Porter calls the ten songs a kind of “ten commandments” – rules for surviving in midlife. They’re about how to accept your wrinkles, let go of old grudges, learn to be a mom, stop being everyone’s savior, and allow yourself to just be.
The album opens with “Nightbird” – it sets a nocturnal, introspective atmosphere for the record and tunes you into an honest inner dialogue. A perfect entry point into the album, where the main task is to rethink what’s been lived. Porter has a huge vocal resource, but what’s more interesting is how she uses it now: her velvety, half-airborne timbre with a warm undertone doesn’t force the sound, but rather hums the thought to herself, lightly touching melismas at the ends of phrases. “Race To Nowhere” shifts the conversation into a more nervous register. Porter sings about the endless race for productivity – the need to do more, be more needed, meet expectations. Alisan sings about this with such an understanding smile that you want to slow your step, exhale, and hug yourself. A living huskiness of fatigue breaks through in her voice, and a dense chest register underscores a firm resolve to break out of the endless race. This is a song about false productivity as a way of not asking yourself uncomfortable questions.
If the previous track speaks about movement, then “Bitter” is about its emotional cost: the bitterness and resentments that it’s time to let go of. Maturity here lies in the decision to no longer build your life around them. Porter’s vocals surprise with mature grace: she easily moves from a restrained, somewhat dry low register to a full-blooded, expressive mix. But in “Love Bomber,” a light ironic spark appears. Relationships with manipulators? Oh yes, we’ve been there, we know. It’s amazing how Alisan can laugh at past mistakes without a drop of bitterness – with a truly feminine, wise humor.
The irony about manipulations naturally grows into a conversation about how to stop trying to remake anyone – the track “Man Out Of You.” Here, the fabulous Shoshana Bean joins Alisan. Their duet sounds like support from a best friend at the most needed moment, reminding you of the truth: “Honey, you don’t have to ‘fix’ and re-educate anyone.” Having let go of attempts to change others, Alisan moves on to inner transformation – and “Alchemist” sounds, the turning point of the album. It’s about the ability to smelt old scars into light, and life’s troubles – into beautiful, deep music. As soon as soul-wounds are smelted into experience, the need arises to declare your right to life – which is, in fact, what the track “Space” is about. The song unfolds from quiet intonations to free, powerful belting, in which there’s no longer any desire to prove anything to anyone. Porter finally decides to lean on herself and allow herself to occupy the space of her own life.
After the loud “Space” comes calm in “Waters Edge.” Having won her space, there’s no need to prove anything anymore, and the vocals become incredibly soft and transparent. Alisan uses falsetto transitions, light as breath, creating a sensation of hovering over water and a complete release of control. In general, this is one of the attractive features of her manner: behind the powerful voice, you feel the experience of a stage singer who knows how to dose the effect. In this peace, the heart opens again for feelings in “U & i.” The voice sounds intimately close to the microphone, and the warm mix in the chorus floods everything around with the light of conscious closeness. The record concludes with the luminous and deep “Clouds.” Having passed through nocturnal silence, realization of mistakes, defending boundaries, and new love, the album returns to the theme of losses, but already on a completely different level of maturity. Alisan uses the rich low register of her voice, giving it a matte sound. Vocal phrases gradually fade away, leaving in the air a long, warm echo of full reconciliation with life.
A separate pleasure is the live, “tube-warm” sound of the album, recorded at Chaplin Recording with the legendary bassist Leland Sklar. No digital gloss. After the television shows, the singer seems to have returned home, to real music. Perhaps critics will say that the concept of a “roadmap of maturity” sometimes shows through the lyrics too obviously. But, my God, how pleasant it is to listen to an artist who isn’t pretending to be anyone! She no longer needs to be little Sue or the perfect winner of a vocal competition.
“PORTER” isn’t about how to defeat age, heal traumas, and become flawless. It’s about something more important: about ending the war with yourself. Growing up is the ability to unclench your fists in time and trust life. After an album like this, the soul becomes amazingly light and quiet.
