Porter Robinson thought he was able to have enjoyable. After the probing vulnerability of his 2021 album Nurture—wrung out after years spent attempting to complicate the candy-painted sheen of his experiments with EDM—the North Carolina-raised musician got down to reconnect with the pleasure-seeking that knowledgeable his earliest work. His new album SMILE! 😀 is garishly nostalgic and unrepentantly joyous, filled with maximalist synth leads that glimmer like a Blingee gif and tender-hearted vocal melodies that vibrate with the youthful abandon of songs overheard in suburban skate outlets.
On one stage, it’s a cathartic launch, a relieved exhale after a inventive block that led to his final album. With a visitor spot from the alt-pop pranksters in Frost Youngsters and a torrent of foolish stunts to advertise the album’s singles, he signaled his goofy intentions. (At a pop-up occasion for “Kitsune Maison Freestyle,” he vibe-checked every fan that confirmed up and gave away clothes from his personal closet.) However what’s really within the songs is extra difficult and emotionally uncooked than his reckless abandon implies.
For the primary time, Robinson reveals extra of his humorousness—“Bitch, I’m Taylor Swift,” he deadpans in “Knock Your self Out XD”—however beneath the vivid colours and foolish jokes, he’s wrestling with heavier themes. “Cheerleader,” although constructed round a synth lead as sickeningly candy because the mud on the finish of a roll of Smarties, grapples with the dynamics of parasocial relationships between followers and artists. Appreciative however anxious, lighthearted but lacerating, the monitor’s tone is a tightrope stroll made all of the extra dizzying by the confectionary rush of its instrumentation, which remembers each the impossibly shiny emo pop of late-aughts Warped Tour staples like Metro Station and the post-hyperpop experiments of singer-songwriters like glaive and aldn.
All through, Robinson displays on getting older and changing into an almost-pop star and ever extra public determine. Even when he wraps his ideas in colourful, caffeinated trappings, they hit arduous. On “12 months of the Cup,” he sings of a determined, self-lacerating urge to be favored: “I can’t fall asleep/’Trigger my thoughts retains ringing with instances that I laid out every part mistaken with me up on stage/It’s embarrassing.” “Simpler to Love You” mulls the loneliness of growing older, discovering disappointment within the distance between the individual you’re and the individual you thought you would possibly change into. All of the whereas, he favors preparations as shiny as he’s ever programmed: Tempos stay excessive, and chiming guitars float skyward within the combine.
The power is rarely extra putting than on “Russian Roulette,” a peppily bittersweet tune that grapples with profession exhaustion and suicidal ideation—and takes a tongue-in-cheek swipe at an notorious joke overview from Pitchfork’s early years—earlier than ending with one of the crucial chopping moments on the entire album. After an emo-fueled refrain—“I wanna dwell/I don’t wanna die”—results in a bouncy trance outro, a primitive computer-generated voice lectures about dance-music cliches (“The kick drum and bass suggests the tune is coming to a detailed—that’s the format we’re used to”) earlier than scolding, “Don’t kill your self, you fool.” Amid such stark contrasts in tone, the sudden vulnerability is surprisingly affecting.
The break up between effervescent sound and downcast temper is jarring. Robinson has been smiling by the ache not less than for the reason that crazy but apocalyptic “Unhappy Machine,” however one thing feels totally different on SMILE! 😀, as if he had been below much less stress to make sense of the grand, sweeping feelings. He’s keen to be chaotic and a little bit all over, and although that does often lead to moments which are arduous to course of, Robinson proves that he’s as adept at wringing shifting moments out of pop tropes as he’s conjuring alien worlds.
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