He also has pretty solid pop instincts. It’s easy to appreciate his way with a hook, and his vocal range remains impressive beneath all the effects. You might wonder if a Tobias Jesso Jr.-style future writing for other artists is in the cards. Plus, he’s surrounded by talented people: An album with Prince’s guitarist Wendy Melvoin on several songs and Shawn Everett on the mix is guaranteed to groove and sparkle in all the right ways. Unlike his peers who let their voices dissolve into the background, sombr is up front to the point of a jumpscare on opener “Crushing,” where he announces his presence with overdriven Julian Casablancas-indebted saturation. The polyphonic choruses of “We Never Dated” and “Back to Friends” lend some weight to breathless early comparisons to Brian Wilson.
A problem is that sombr’s lyrics have this strange attitude towards women (in awe of, in fear of) that lands him closer to “Smart Girls” than “God Only Knows.” There’s now a Hot 100 hit with this lyric: “I don’t want the children of another man to have the eyes of the girl I won’t forget.” That line caught on for a reason, if not a good one, and it’s indicative of how the breakup songs are just slightly too mean-spirited to give him the benefit of the doubt. In “Come Closer,” he’s falling over himself for a femme fatale, saying, “You’re the only one I want/And I ain’t one of your pawns.” He’s more enjoyable with endearingly corny wordplay like “I miss the days when we were crushing on each other/Now you’re just crushing my soul, my lover.” But this trick also has its limits, getting overly cute on songs like the shuffle “Dime” (“You’re a ten and I’m a man that needs a dime”) and reaching unintentional humor when repurposing the famous line from Brokeback Mountain on “I Wish I Knew How to Quit You.”
A pair of songs break from the yearncore formula and lean into pure melodrama, and they’re the most promising. Current hit “12 to 12” recalls Brandon Flowers’ gloriously histrionic 2015 solo record The Desired Effect, reviving nu-disco by sheer force of will and a swaggering vocal performance. The playful ’80s synths suggest someone leaning all the way into campiness, a surprisingly good fit for an artist who can come off suspiciously sincere. The other highlight is closer “Under the Mat,” where he amplifies a heartbreak to epic Springsteen levels. There are still clunkers like the worryingly vague line “She and I didn’t see eye to eye on politics and such,” but when sombr and his lovr are moving into a shoebox apartment, it’s hard not to root for them. Instead of hammering in the point of a relationship that fell apart, this time he’s interested in examining why it fell apart. As much as they loved one another, these two simply couldn’t overcome their differences. She was a suburban girl. He was a city boy. And no, sombr can’t make it any more obvious.
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