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, possibly nobody, had ever really reckoned with the inventive output of Sombr. And proper now, Sombr has two songs within the Prime 40 on the Billboard Sizzling 100. Sombr simply turned 20. He’s tall. He’s obtained razor-sharp cheekbones. That is somebody who’s a full bundle earlier than you even know that you simply’ve obtained the bundle. Each Sombr music is about hookup tradition indirectly, however largely 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 hearken to? It’s. The emotional palette shouldn’t be that extensive right here. All of Sombr songs are in this type of, like, moody grey shade. The best way that it marches, it’s nearly 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 whole lot of the perfect British bands of that period. The true query for me is why is Sombr so fashionable proper now? Positive, I hear a whole 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 Mates,” is clearly heading in the direction of phenomenon territory, however it’s nonetheless obscure and fuzzy to me. Canine, there’s a Pastime Foyer down right here? Wild.
