Sombr has New York City under his spell. The 20-year-old had just stepped onto a stage assembled on Canal Street to the sound of piercing screams. His debut album I Barely Know Her was scheduled for release in a few hours, but the musician wanted the first introduction of these songs to happen on the same streets that exist within them. There were people perched on fire escapes, others watching from the ledge of wide open windows. Behind the provisional stage, cars passed by and buses trudged along to their next stop while passengers glanced curiously at the impromptu rock show that shut the street down. The scene was everything that the album is — enamored, uninhibited, steeped in sonder.
I Barely Know Her strikes a balance between the reality of New York and the romanticized version of it. On the standout single “12 to 12,” Sombr crafts an intoxicating scene set against the deep grooves of its bassline and lilting synths with percussive stabs. He helmed production on the album alongside Tony Berg. It makes heartbreak sound so alluring. “I know you wanna see me in hell, my love,” he sings in a tone that suggests he wouldn’t mind the trip down there. “I'm dealing with the cards I've dealt/While you're dancing with somebody else.” The snap back to reality comes on the bridge. “Maybe, I'm delusional/And the way you act is usual,” he considers. “Maybe in another world/I won't feel so unlovable.”
Sombr scatters these staggering divulgences across the record. They slice through the sweltering heat of expert instrumental arrangements like cold plunges, or the droplets of unidentified liquid that plummet from air conditioning units throughout the city. “I learned to read her eyes and know when she would lie,” he sings on “Under the Mat,” the album closer. “I watched her start to hate me.” Sombr performs with a distinct internal confidence and external charm that has been notably absent in the withering releases from many of his male contemporaries in pop. At times, it makes him seem much older than he is. But his age shows as he presents his findings from hard-learned lessons in love. “Is it a crime to care so much for another, you're left with nothin' for yourself?” he wonders on “Dime.”
It’s the one somewhat clumsy point on the 10-track album beside “We Never Dated,” lacking the sharp locution that Sombr deploys in much more polished fashion elsewhere. It also suffered the fate of coming directly after “Canal Street,” the bleeding heart of I Barely Know Her. The ballad is a knockout showcase of melancholy and melodies. There’s a roaring bluesy guitar solo that engulfs the climax of the song, calling to mind the emotional devastation of Olivia Rodrigo’s “Traitor.” Both artists are proud champions of the traditional pop song structure. Every track on the album pushes past the three-minute mark and builds up to a momentous bridge. “Come Closer” gets close to being the peak moment, with the lushest harmonies on the album, but it’s hard to beat “12 to 12.” It’s pop in its most riveting form.
“Canal Street” comes in at five minutes and makes every second count. “Do you still smoke on the patio? Is your brother still in the hospital? Do you hear me crying out for you on the radio?” Sombr asks on the pre-chorus (Remember those?). “I've got everything I thought I'd need now/But I'm still smoking cigarettes on my couch/And it kills my mom, but it brings me back to you.” That radio placement could be any number of the hits he scored during his relentless run of singles leading up to I Barely Know Her, including the evocative “Back to Friends” and the Fleetwood Mac-esque “Undressed.” The percussive album opener “Crushing,” packed to the brim with idiosyncratic instrumental quirks, could keep his hot streak going.
During the record release show, Sombr riffed about someone vandalizing one of the many promotional posters he has plastered across the Lower East Side. Whoever it was, he said, declared “Rock & Roll is dead and you killed it.” Too cool to care too much about it, he dismissed it with a swift “fuck that person,” and hammered into the next song. It immediately recalled an act that has always seemed to be a prevailing influence for the singer-songwriter and producer, if not dramatically in sound then in style (and unmistakable to anyone who was a teenager at the height of the soft-grunge Tumblr era in the early 2010s). Back in 2019, blinding lights flashed behind Matty Healy on stage at Coachella. “Rock & Roll Is Dead,” the screen read. “God Bless The 1975.”
If it really is dead, so be it. But pop is alive and well. God Bless Sombr.
