The woods have long had a grip on Corbin. Back when he was known as Spooky Black, the mysterious durag-wearing paragon of the early cloud rap era, YouTube uploads depicted the fresh-faced 15-year-old performing his ghostly take on R&B in the wooded fringes of his hometown in St Paul, Minnesota. Then, ahead of the release of his 2018 industrial electronic album Mourn, he told Dazed of his resolve to retreat into a bunker in the forest. 

But, when I caught Corbin after his first UK show in ten years at Corsica Studios in London last week, the now 27-year-old was nothing but smiles as he told me he’d recently moved to LA. What was going on? “I did live in a cabin in the woods but it was too much work for me at the time, I got it when I was like 18 making [Mourn],” Corbin told me. “I never thought I’d live in LA, but I do now. It’s where everyone is, and it’s easier to live a healthier lifestyle out there.”

Corbin was likely alluding to his decision to get sober while recording new post-punk-inflected album Crisis Kid. It was a long time coming. The SoundCloud star had previously confessed to hitting the drink hard in order to deal with his teenage virality, and he finally reached his reckoning on New Year’s Day 2023 after hitting the bar too hard at Florida airport and accidentally soiling his trousers before his flight home. 

Now, while still sporting his distinctly visceral delivery, the new album tracks Corbin’s attempts to find stable ground as a fully-formed adult. After years of heartwrenchingly pessimistic lyrics, Crisis Kid sees Corbin sing of forgiving past wrongs and reminding himself there’s nothing to be scared of anymore. It’s not exactly easy listening, but certainly a breakthrough for the long-troubled artist 

“I’m trying not to be as nihilistic now, I’m trying to be more ‘realistic optimism’, but I’m still fighting nihilism every day – we all are, I guess,” Corbin continued, looking out over the empty central London street where, just one hour before, almost a hundred fans had lined-up for an impromptu post-show meet and greet. 

Attendees had poured out in droves to see his long-awaited return to the UK, which had sold out in seconds. One girl behind me wept throughout the entirety of Corbin’s performance that night, while another fan told me that he had travelled from Paris just to catch the show. What Corbin lacks in positivity, he certainly makes up for in dedicated fans.

Or, perhaps more accurately, it is through chronicling his battles with mental illness so vividly that Corbin has developed such a strong relationship with his listeners. “You’re a crisis kid, we’re all crisis kids,” he sings on the title track of the new project – a message which appeared to have become somewhat of a rallying cry for his audience. 

Corbin spent well over an hour speaking to fans on the dingy street outside of Corsica Studios, each sharing personal accounts of how his music had given meaning to their pain and guided them through particularly tough times. It was a genuinely touching moment, and one that was hard not to view in relation to the soul-searching Corbin himself has undertaken as of late. 

After all, even with his move to LA, his new push for sobriety, and his cautious turn toward ‘realistic optimism’, Corbin still identifies as a crisis kid. “I’m definitely in a happier place, but I’m on the verge of a crisis at all times, I think. It’ll take one thing – probably a bigger thing than it would have before – but it’ll take just one thing to tip me back into crisis,” he concluded. “I’m not out of the woods just yet.”

Check the gallery above for a closer look at the ‘crisis kids’ that attended Corbin’s first UK show in ten years.