On September 12, 2023, four years after the release of her debut Jaime, Co-CEO of Island Records Justin Eshak announced that Howard had signed with the label.

"[12] Jessie Brown from DIY Magazine called the album, "Sonically sprawling ... yet also unafraid to find joy in simple pleasures" and declared, 'WHAT NOW' is a gem.

"[13] Writing for The Observer, Kitty Empire claimed, "It's impossible to know what to praise the hardest: the delicate trumpet of Rod McGaha, Howard's own guitar work or her bravura vocal performance on Every Color in Blue.

"[16] In the review for Pitchfork, Claire Shaffer declared that, "Every song here, even the slow stuff, feels giant and propulsive—a grand celestial tour of rock and R&B, guided by one of the few singers and multi-instrumentalists with the range and intuition to pull it off."

Going into detail, Shaffer described Howard's songwriting as, "construct[ing] narratives that start from an impressionistic fragment of a feeling—uncertainty, indignation, crushing desire—and lets the music take you the rest of the way.