THE 1975: A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships

It’s getting really hard to tell whether The 1975 are a pop band with art school tendencies, or an art band with huge poppy hooks. At any rate, their third full-length album is a masterful straddle of that precarious line. One half atmosphere and experiment, and one half synthy pop rock. They’ve only gotten more confident in their weirdness, and that’s a good thing.

A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships opens with a 90-second doodle of a song called, of all things, The 1975. It’s always a little cheeky when a band gives itself a namesake song, and this one sets the table for a whole album full of cheek. If you’re not listening closely, you might not catch some of the darkly comic lyricism.

Love It If We Made It quotes Donald’s Trump infamous Access Hollywood tape and somehow makes it sound poetic. Be My Mistake would be romantic if it weren’t so playfully insulting. Another track is titled Sincerity is Scary, which is ironically, a pretty straightforward admission of insincerity. It might as well be The 1975’s mission statement.

Not to jinx them or anything, but it’s tempting to make an OK Computer analogy. The Radiohead influence is easily heard, without ever becoming too blatant. The Man Who Married A Robot/Love Theme isn’t so much of a song as a modern day update of Radiohead’s Fitter Happier. I Always Wanna Die (Sometimes) recalls Fake Plastic Trees in all of its dreamy self-pity.

Full disclosure, their first album still lays claim to the band’s strongest radio singles. There’s nothing here as urgent as Sex and nothing as addictive as Chocolate- two of their best early tracks. But on the whole, The 1975 is getting smarter and more adventurous with time. Their relationship with the listener has only just begun. A-