Has a pop star ever simply snuck up on you out of nowhere? How weepy is that new Sombr music? Get in. Let’s speak about it. Six months in the past, I, you, perhaps nobody, had ever actually reckoned with the creative output of Sombr. And proper now, Sombr has two songs within the High 40 on the Billboard Scorching 100. Sombr simply turned 20. He’s tall. He’s acquired razor-sharp cheekbones. That is somebody who’s a full package deal earlier than you even know that you simply’ve acquired the package deal. Each Sombr music is about hookup tradition ultimately, 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 just isn’t that extensive right here. All of Sombr songs are in this type of, like, moody grey coloration. The best way 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 remembers quite a lot of one of the best British bands of that period. The actual query for me is why is Sombr so in style proper now? Positive, I hear quite a lot 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, nevertheless it’s nonetheless obscure and fuzzy to me. Canine, there’s a Passion Foyer down right here? Wild.
