Hi, everyone. Earthony Plugtano here, the internet's busiest music nerd, and it's time for a review of this new sombr record, I Barely Know Her.

20-year-old Shane Michael Boose is a singer and songwriter who performs and writes under the name sombr, which is a play on the abbreviation of his initials and also is supposed to reflect feelings that he was dealing with at the time that he began to release his music out into the world. His influences are said to range from Radiohead to Billie Eilish to the Velvet Underground. And apparently, he's been recording music since he was a kid using programs like GarageBand to start out.

And after releasing just a few singles under this name, he was signed to Warner Brothers in 2023. He has also since exploded in popularity due to the virality of tracks like "12 to 12", "Undressed", and "Back to Friends" on numerous platforms, but especially TikTok. This has led to a meteoric rise. I mean, he apparently is sitting at 50 million monthly listeners and counting on Spotify alone, really making him an instant hit in the industry, recently doing a little VMAs performance as well that was pretty warmly received. He certainly wasn't seeing as much hate out of the gate as Benson Boone did with the back flips and the jumpsuit.

But yeah, those viral tracks have led to the release of this brand new debut full-length album, which has been released through Warner as well as sombr's own SMB imprint. There were also a few other reasons I was looking forward to digging into this album, like pretty much all the songs being written and produced by Shane himself. Sure, there are a lot of guest musicians throughout the record, but at this level of fame in the industry today, you don't often see a lot of artists completely owning their own creative process quite to this degree.

I was also surprised to see this album mark the true return to the cut and dry 10-track pop record, something that's an increasing rarity in an era of stream boosting and deluxe editions that span the length of a whole 'nother album. Thank you, Swag 2.

But yeah, I love a good calling card record that's a debut, that's an intro, that gives you a baseline of what the artist is about with no frills and no fluff, which I think is pretty much what I Barely Know Her is.

Even though I don't really love this LP, I do think it is a great starting point for sombr and showcases a lot of clear talent very early on in what is hopefully a fruitful discography. Because "12 to 12" is handily one of the more addictive pop tunes I've heard this year. Not only is the tune at the core of this one super snappy, but the vocals are passionate as hell, and Shane and his collaborators really nailed the glossy high glam disco production with its heavy beats and bass and piano lines synced up and swirling arpeggios.

And as far as songwriting is concerned, I do think "Back to Friends" is another point of interest. It's a track that is somber to say the least, and is loaded with all of these well-layered, groovy guitars, bass and drums, all chugging along at a hypnotic pace. The lyrics contribute very well to this ongoing trend in pop music of break-up songs that are like about, I don't know, not so much breaking up and not seeing each other again, but breaking up and then having to shift the relationship or the connection into something that is platonic.

Again, I think the song at the core of this track is solid, but the issue is that I very much think sombr is still working on whatever is going to be his sound, because this track is reflective of one of many different instrumental directions this album goes in because you have moments like the intro, for example, which is a shimmering piece of pop rock that feels like something from a Brandon Flowers solo record or maybe even like a late 2000s Killers track.

Meanwhile, the spacey production and patiently rock and grooves of "I Wish I Knew How to Quit You" is more reminiscent of the commercial indie vibes we were getting during the early 2010s from bands like Foster the People. "Come Closer", in a way, gives us another helping of this indie alt pastiche with a super heavy dose of reverb. The track overall sounds like some of the hookiest moments from any number of Cage the Elephant albums, with maybe a bit of the Strokes in there, too.

And of course, with "Canal Street", we have a melodrama ballad that feels like Chappell Roan, but for the boys. While it's not a favorite of mine on the album, I can admit that Shane does a good job of really selling a song vocally when he wants to. And I do appreciate the Beach Boys-esque quality to some of the vocal harmony arrangements on the track, too, which can also be heard to an extent on the track "We Never Dated", and numerous passages of "Under the Mat", too.

Look, across the runtime of this LP, Shane and everyone working with him, they do a lot of different things decently. But I wouldn't say that this is a record where sombr as a project is excelling at much of anything yet. I mean, the strongest song, again, is "12 to 12". Shane is clearly a very passionate and talented vocalist. Seemingly a lot of heart went into many of the instrumental arrangements and grooves that serve as the backbone to these songs.

I will say often they are difficult to enjoy or just to eat up the finer details because so many of the songs on this album are needlessly slathered in just the thinnest, tinniest reverb, which feels like Shane is going for this faux vintage flair that we hear from newer singers like Teddy Swims, or maybe he's alluding to an Unknown Mortal Orchestra album or to some Tame Impala or the Black Keys, who knows?

The thing is, we've heard this aesthetic and presentation overused to the point where it no longer feels vintage. It no longer feels nostalgic at all. It's as cliché and contemporary and as overused as anything else. Why Shane feels the need to force it here I don't know. It just doesn't do anything to enhance the songs Shane is writing, and I would even say, to a degree, ruins them, especially in the case of "I Wish I Knew How to Quit You", because for the majority of that song, Shane sounds like he's singing from the other end of a drain pipe, and his vocals just come across as horrendously distorted, too.

Again, all this reverb, all of this interference in terms of the quality of his voice. I just don't see what it brings to the song, especially since he is a very competent singer. It sounds like it. Why make his vocals and the instrumentation sound so purposefully rough when it's clear he's not going for this lofi bedroom pop thing. He's not doing some experimental underground indie project.

Like the singing and the writing and the instrumentation, especially during the passages where it's a little more arranged and layered. This is a pop record, a true blue, well-groomed pop record through and through. We can just let it be and let it ride and let it exist as that without having to put on this fake veneer of, oh, it's a little like obscured and noisy. No, it's not. You just threw an unnecessary amount of cavernous reverb on it.

So yeah, again, good vocals, some strong songs here and there, but I do feel like the instrumental direction and the overall presentation needs quite a bit of work. But I do think there is most certainly a foundation here for Shane and his collaborators to work from when doing more stuff in the future, which is why I'm feeling a strong 5 to a light 6 on this thing.

Anthony Fantano. sombr, forever.