Almost Captures Five Early-Twenties Love Stories in Pop Form, Each One Leaving a Different Kind of Mark

Released December 15, 2018, the EP follows five relationships that shaped her, each track acting like its own snapshot: a glow you cannot forget, a future you practiced for, a seasonal romance that turned painful, a long relationship that ended with guilt, and a New York love that made the city feel darker once it was gone.

The project’s strength is its specificity. Deraz writes in vivid details that feel like memories you can touch: words traced on skin, last names rehearsed in private, autumn parking lots, and the kind of city-night silence that hits hardest after someone leaves. Across the EP, she captures the emotional math of young love: how quickly certainty can become “almost,” and how the relationships that do not last can still shape who you are.

Track Notes

“Sunflower Eyes”

“Sunflower Eyes” revisits a past love defined by a golden glow - romantic and slightly unreal, like a memory that flickers between truth and imagination. Deraz grounds the song in an intimate detail that feels like a secret: “He had crazy habits, spelling words in my palms,” then twists the knife with “Maybe I imagined it, he wrote you’re beautiful I love you, goodbye.” It is a track about tenderness that turns into doubt, and how even the sweetest moments can become hard to trust once they are over.

“Almost”

The title track centers on the love Deraz thought would be the one, until the future she pictured started slipping. “I practiced signing your last name, I didn’t know your mind would change” captures that specific kind of heartbreak that comes from planning a life in your head while the other person quietly exits. The imagery escalates into emotional disaster: “He left me barefoot in a hurricane,” followed by the aftermath line that lingers like trauma conditioning, “Now I tiptoe in the lightest rain, waiting for the downpour.” “Almost” is not just about losing love. It is about what the loss teaches your body to expect next time.

“November”

“November” is autumn-coded from its core, centered on a romance that lived in the season’s atmosphere and ended with the kind of ache that feels inevitable in hindsight. Set in a parking lot, the song frames love as something spoken into the cold and meant, until it is not. “Promises don’t mean much when they’re laced with pain” lands as the song’s thesis, a line that captures the moment sweetness becomes complicated, and the relationship starts to feel like it is hurting more than it is holding.

“3 Years”

“3 Years” zooms out from a moment into a timeline, exploring the guilt and second-guessing that can follow when you end something long-term. The track holds the fear that comes after choosing yourself, especially when you worry you were the one in the wrong. “No one’s gonna love me like you used to” captures the panic behind the decision, the worry that leaving means forfeiting the best love you will ever get. It is one of the EP’s most emotionally exposed tracks, less about the romance itself and more about the cost of closing the door.

“Lonely Like Me”

“Lonely Like Me” returns to one of Deraz’s most familiar settings, New York City, using the city as both location and emotional amplifier. The story follows a love that started there, full of motion and intensity, and then collapses into absence. “Driving down the city streets, I yelled at you to pay attention but you were busy looking at me” captures the cinematic beginning, while “Does your mom ever ask about me” adds the small, human question that shows she is still tethered to the life around him. The closing image hits hardest: “Even NYC is dark when you’re gone.” The city that never sleeps becomes a place that cannot distract her anymore.

Why Almost POPS! 🍬

What ties Almost together is the emotional arc of becoming someone through relationships. Each track stands on its own, but as a full project it reads like a coming-of-age document, five different love stories, five different lessons, one evolving narrator. Deraz captures the vulnerability of that era with clarity: the way young love can feel permanent, the way it can end suddenly, and the way the aftermath becomes part of who you are.

Almost is a title that says everything. These relationships were not nothing. They were not forever. They were almost, and that was enough to shape her early twenties.