It's a little difficult to compare emo chiptune extraordinaires Hey, ily!'s best-known record, Internet Breath, with anything else in their catalog, especially their more recent, debut LP, Psychokinetic Love Songs. It's one of those cases where the difficulty of equating two things is a sign that there needs to be a change in approach. Internet Breath may have grabbed people's attention as a brilliant proof of concept, but it is Psychokinetic Love Songs that truly tests whether they can rightfully earn your hard-won affection. By the time their 2022 LP had been released, the group had expanded beyond its singular composer, Caleb Haynes, in order to become a quintet, a fact that appears to have accelerated the writing process, allowing the band to wrap up penning the Psychokinetic Love Songs in around two weeks. Writing faster didn't result in cutting corners or resting on the laurels of past successes either, as the songs on the album have much sturdier and clearly defined structures, which still leaves room for delightful detours into the splendid and unexpected. While digitally-driven, midwest emo like Weatherday and Heccra continue to be important reference points for contextualizing the group's sound, experiencing the delight with which they wade into doo-wopy saccharine bliss in the midst of a topsy-turvy melody cascade such as on "Intrusive Thoughts Always," or get lost in a light orchestral ska-waltz on "Glass House," or crystalize a fusion of R'nB and new age meditation music on "Dreaming," or even how they manage to ride a sunny surf groove over the horizon into the thrilling oblivion of an ocean-breeze cooled, acid-house and skramz singed daydream on the title track shows that the band is simply at their best when they shred the old playbook and write a new one on the fly. What's most interesting about the direction the band is taking on Psychokinetic Love Songs, is that the sturdier song structures consistently call back to, intentionally or not, 80's powerpop both in terms of synth tones and emphasis on aesthetic payoffs through a variety of melodic hooks, an approach that contributes an additional dimension of recognition and sentimentality that synchronizes perfectly with their retro-electronic modus operandi. Psychokinetic Love Songs is like a clairvoyant kiss blown in your direction by a digital oracle, whose sign of tenderness catches you like a fish hook and reels you into a future you did not know was possible. There is no way to know what evolutionary path the band will take from here; all that I can say is that as bright as their past is, their prospects hereafter are that much brighter.
* That's a wrap on the Sping Color Challenge. I'm feeling peachy keen about how it went and that's why I'm ending by writing about an album that makes me feel all fuzzy inside. Sayonara, folks!
