Over the past decade, Syd has emerged as a purposefully understated but no less commanding singer and producer in R&B. Whether making layered, party-ready grooves with her group the Internet or sultry, subterranean hip-hop and neo-soul on her 2017 solo debut Fin, the California artist’s music has an unhurried, intimate appeal to it. Syd’s hushed voice can bend into a gossamer falsetto or a no-nonsense flow depending on her mood, bringing a deft, preternaturally cool touch to sensual ballads and swaggering earworms alike.
On her second album, Broken Hearts Club, Syd reshapes heartbreak into pillowy, ’80s-nodding R&B. The album softens her sound with sunny acoustic guitar and velvety beats, but her songwriting doesn’t surrender its vulnerability and focus on queer desire that made Fin so intoxicating. Syd is a natural romantic, especially on “Fast Car,” which depicts an affair so white-hot it’s holding up traffic. “Don’t care that they beepin’ now/Hope they’re all watching,” she teases over phased electric guitar and twinkling piano, zeroing in on that sweet spot where adoration takes over common sense. Opener “CYBAH” relishes in the sound of quiet storm, as Syd teams up with New Orleans crooner Lucky Daye over pitch-shifted guitars and a slow-motion beat. Here, her insecurities start to simmer before a new flame: “If I ever make you mine, need to know if you’re the type/Do me wrong or do me right… Could you break a heart?” she murmurs, posing a question she already knows the answer to.
That push-and-pull is at the core of Broken Hearts Club, which saunters from breezy, tenderhearted songs to downcast ballads that center moments of doubt and mistrust. True to its title, Syd has said the album is about her first real heartbreak, and many songs are tinged with that bittersweet aftershock. “Hope you’re finding what you need or what you seek/’Cause now I’m free,” she shrugs on “Missing Out” alongside trilling, Casio-style keys, just before a trace of regret sets in. During “Out Loud,” a silken ballad featuring Kehlani that’s fringed with plucked acoustic guitar and layered backing vocals, Syd urges a lover to voice their true feelings, no matter the cost. There’s a bluntness to the songs on this record that was absent from Fin and makes for a more conventional album when paired with the soft-focus instrumentation, but it offers a familiarity that grows seductive in Syd’s mellow flow. That she makes a more traditional path still sound so fresh only reaffirms her considerable versatility, no matter the style of R&B.
Broken Hearts Club doesn’t stray far from that warm atmosphere, but Syd still makes time for the occasional detour. The bouncy, cartoonish synth line on “Tie the Knot” brings a welcome jolt of playfulness, while the creeping bass that courses through the Darkchild-produced standout “Control” evokes Fin’s shadowy, after-hours highlights. Those idiosyncratic moments embroider an album that proves allowing yourself space for vulnerability is the surest method of moving on from heartache. Syd finally finds closure of her own over a lone, hazy synth melody on the too-brief “Goodbye My Love”: “Maybe we’ll see it in time, my love/Just wasn’t destined to work for us,” she confesses. “We had to put ourselves first for once.” It’s a mature farewell imbued with melancholy, a temperament that Broken Hearts Club carries with artful finesse.
