Bartees Unusual is one in every of a number of high-profile musicians who’ve just lately adopted a goth visible aesthetic, however his sound stays grounded in indie rock, neosoul, and hip-hop. On his newest album, Horror (4AD), which dropped on Valentine’s Day, Unusual mines the existential dread that’s haunted him for many of his life. Born in England in 1989, he moved everywhere in the world as his mother and father modified jobs, however when he was 12 years outdated, the household settled in Mustang, Oklahoma, a suburb of Oklahoma Metropolis. He spent his adolescence queer and Black in a neighborhood the place Black folks made up lower than one % of the inhabitants. A number of tracks on Horror converse to his long-term psychological hangover from that have, however none seize his lingering sense of alienation fairly just like the album’s first single, “Sober.”
That monitor—simply the album’s strongest track—describes repeatedly falling brief in relationships and consuming to cowl up that ache. In interviews, Unusual has described feeling foiled by an absence of wholesome relationship fashions, particularly rising up, and he connects this to his behavior of self-sabotage. “That’s why it’s onerous to be sober,” he sings. Whereas Stereogum describes the track as “a delicately chugging 80s-style heartland rocker,” to my ear, its breezy, poetic anguish remembers Fleetwood Mac’s “Desires” (a gay TikToker is overdue to grab some juice and skateboard to “Sober” whereas lip-synching). Within the music video, Unusual performs an acoustic guitar and wears a blazer embellished like a Nudie swimsuit jacket—besides the detailing is extra typical of a Black girl’s Sunday church garments than a rustic famous person’s outfit, and he pairs it with knee-length shorts that really feel very schoolboy. The look blurs the road between nation and gospel whereas embracing a stress between rock-star bravado and human insecurity. It’s compelling and susceptible—simply as Unusual is as a songwriter.
Bartees Unusual Sloppy Jane opens. Wed 5/21, 8 PM, Thalia Hall, 1807 S. Allport, $22, $30 seated balcony, $240 six-person opera field, 17+
