Some albums feel written, and some feel lived. “When I Think,” the third record from Norfolk singer-songwriter Ervin Munir, belongs firmly to the second kind. Out now, this eleven track collection sounds like it was carved out of long nights and hard conversations, and it does not flinch from either.

“Lifeline” opens things gently, just piano and voice at first, before the record starts pulling at its own seams. Munir has never been content to stay in one lane, and here he lets the songs breathe wherever they need to. A tender folk ballad might tip into something rawer and more electric within a verse or two, and somehow it always feels earned rather than forced.

Songs like “Rainfall Memories” and “I Don’t Care” carry the record’s quieter ache, the kind of writing that sounds like it was pulled straight from a notebook rather than polished for an audience. “One Step Beyond” is where the album stretches furthest, folk roots still showing but branches reaching somewhere wilder.

The title track sits at the record’s centre, an animated video set to accompany its release, and it is easy to hear why it was chosen to carry the album’s name. Stripped back and unguarded, it is Munir at his most exposed.

There is a shadow over this whole project, though, and it gives the songs an extra weight. The album is dedicated to Aeron Z Jones, Munir’s longtime producer and close friend, who passed away recently. Jones helped build Munir’s sound across his earlier work, and you can hear his hand in the way these songs are shaped, patient, unhurried, never rushing toward a big finish. Losing him clearly left a mark, and “When I Think” plays like a way of holding onto that friendship a little longer.

This is folk music with its sleeves rolled up, unpolished where it needs to be and generous with its feeling. Munir has made a record that mourns and celebrates in the same breath, and it is one of the most honest things he has put his name to.