Has a pop star ever simply snuck up on you out of nowhere? How weepy is that new Sombr music? Get in. Let’s discuss it. Six months in the past, I, you, perhaps nobody, had ever actually reckoned with the inventive output of Sombr. And proper now, Sombr has two songs within the Prime 40 on the Billboard Scorching 100. Sombr simply turned 20. He’s tall. He’s received razor-sharp cheekbones. That is somebody who’s a full bundle earlier than you even know that you just’ve acquired the bundle. Each Sombr music is about hookup tradition not directly, however principally it’s about how unhappy hookup tradition makes you’re feeling. It’s about how darkish it makes you’re feeling. It’s about the way it places you in a tunnel of emotional vacancy. Oh come on, canine, this music is a sense. It’s saying, “We did this factor. It didn’t work out. Now what?” Is it little bit dry to take heed to? It’s. The emotional palette shouldn’t be that large right here. All of Sombr songs are in this sort of, like, moody grey coloration. The way in which that it marches, it’s virtually funereal. The foggy high quality of the music actually jogs my memory of CHILLWAVE but when it was made for arenas, not smoky little rooms. There’s additionally a bunch of ’90s Britpop in right here, that tunefulness actually recollects a number of one of the best British bands of that period. The true query for me is why is Sombr so standard proper now? Positive, I hear a number of Sombr on TikTok: breakup TikToks, unhappy information TikToks, household trauma TikToks. However to me, that doesn’t account for the broad-base recognition that he’s experiencing. As a critic, a part of what I do is attempt to perceive what takes one thing from a curio to a phenomenon. Sombr, and “Again to Associates,” is clearly heading in direction of phenomenon territory, however it’s nonetheless obscure and fuzzy to me. Canine, there’s a Pastime Foyer down right here? Wild.
