Aiden Grimshaw recently released Is This Love. The single is the first one off his upcoming debut album Misty Eye coming out this August.

Granted Aiden Grimshaw did not emerge as the champion during his stint on the seventh UK series of the TV singing competition X-Factor, where he competed with his good friend and eventual winner Matt Cardle and the now-global pop phenomenon One Direction. But I still get goosebumps listening to his rendition of Mad World, a performance from which I immediately tagged him as my favorite in the competition.

Two years later, Aiden has moved from Blackpool to London and spent his time writing and recording songs. And Is This Love is one of these songs. The more successful acts from X-Factor is better known for their bubblegum pop tracks, but Aiden deviates from this pattern as his debut song is markedly different.

The song captures Aiden’s vocal intensity backed by drums, bass, and synths. The track swells and bursts in your brain with a grand chorus that embeds itself in your memory. Listening to Is This Love is a trippy journey in itself with lots of ups, downs, spirals and turns as it lays out questions and realizations. The song paints a charged atmosphere that combines romance, bitterness and beauty. Favorite lyrics: “There’s a fiery eye in the middle of a dark sea, and it’s pulling me down, and I can’t breathe.”

Is the song fierce? Yes. Is the song fresh? Yes. But most importantly, is the song any good? Bloody hell, yes! Check out the music video for below, where Aiden Grimshaw is notably almost absent (his cameo lasts for just about 4 seconds around the 1:14 mark).