Photo Credit: Bianca Gerasia
The West Hollywood trio Lovelytheband is stretching their muscles in the still fresh indie pop genre, aiming to make their voice heard during this sudden boom of the underground alternative movement. On their sophomore album Conversations with Myself About You, the band tries to enhance their sound and challenges the conventions of mainstream indie pop.
It is in fact consistent with the band’s history. When their debut single “Broken” released three years ago, it literally showed us a new way to approach a “party song.” The song opens with the lyrics, “I like that you’re broken, broken like me” – which is not a very uplifting start to a pop song. Then the beat shifts away from the somber tone as Mitchy Collins sings: “Life is not a love song that we like // We’re all broken pieces floating by // Life is not a love song, we can try // To fix our broken pieces one at a time.” This band is a group of storytellers that makes listeners have a cathartic feeling every time they pen their words.
Conversations with Myself About You is comprised of fourteen songs and begins with the titular track. As multiple voices speak out the name of the album, we are fed enough delightful crumbs as to what we are about to see unfold. The track is a strong prologue that not only introduces better than most, but also builds enough hype for listeners to move forward. The song “Buzz Cut” is their most mainstream outing. As they leave no tables unturned molding into the style of their contemporaries Walk the Moon’s TALKING IS HARD. On the contrary, the lyrics tell a story opposite of the supposed upbeat vibe – as we delve into a tale of love that is not achieved, rather it is misunderstood to be true. “Waste” follows the same trajectory reference-wise while upbeat guitar strides along autotuned vocals.
“Idwgtyp” is an acronym for the lyric in the chorus, “I don’t want to go to your party anymore.” With this track, we may have found one of the smash hits of this past summer, and that is saying a lot. The catchy lyrics and up-tempo coupled with their use of the blues to lift up the spirit of the song’s approach really defines the band in all its vulnerability and grounded diversity. It shares an uncanny resemblance with “Broken” – the only difference being that Mitchy Collins and gang decide to channel the seemingly depressing lyrics into a completely opposite setting. This sort of self-reference is what solidifies Lovelytheband’s reputation as a group of unique artists that are also very self-aware.
Surprisingly, the slow and numbing “Emo” seems to be some sort of a weakling amongst the group of otherwise decently penned songs. It is limiting in scope and in wording, and easy to overlook. Mitchy Collins and crew are very diverse in terms of using different sounds on Conversations with Myself About You. “I Hate Myself’ uses whistling to create an absurd but fun atmosphere, “I Should be Happy” uses piano to shift the audience’s mood to go into a more relaxed and reflective moment. “I Should Be Happy” focuses on frontman Mitchy Collins’ struggles with depression in a soulful ballad. The lyrics, although being extremely individualistic, allows enough space to be relatable due to their subject matter being based around mental health awareness.
“Flowers on my Grave” is a classic mix of fun indie rock music with serious song writing. It begins to wrap up Conversations with Myself About You nicely while also having this eerie presence of being some sort of an oddball to its narrative. Overall, Lovelytheband’s second album does leave the listeners and fans wanting more. They have successfully produced another humbly hard-hitting series of songs while building up the potential to take the Billboard charts by storm.
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