by Jonah Evans (@jonahinthesnow)
North London’s Sorry has dropped their 3rd LP, Cosplay, and it is a doozy. It’s lyrically potent and stretches the possibilities of what an LP can or should or would sound like with layers of electronics, guitars, beats, and style. The album seems to have no boundaries or definitive expectations, which is nothing new to Sorry. However, on Cosplay, as they reach the edge of soundscapes and what music could or should or would look like, their blade is sharper than ever and cuts with precision, as the album is riddled with gorgeous song compositions that pique curiosity, delineate excitement, swirl in darkness, and foster great wonder.
Maybe it’s the jazz-like beat of “Candle” that makes me want to bop my head, with swinging keys jauntily tapping, the kick and snare clear. Maybe it’s Asha Lorenz’s vocals that sound almost scared or strained but defiant as she sings, “I don’t fade out / I don’t fade in / I don’t need much or feel anything.” Or maybe it’s when she sings the “ooo’s” in a torrid voice in between verses or chorus that emulate pain and desire and a slight tone of playfulness all at the same time. Maybe it’s the ballad-like declarative escalative bridge/breakdown near the end of the song where Lorenz’s vocals climb as she sings “Don’t take me home / ‘Cause I got fire left to burn.” I’m reminded of how punchy and visceral Fiona Apple is and how she can make life feel raw and alive, where everything feels so real, and it’s exactly what Lorenz does too.
It could also be how the album has many faces as well, like different masks to exhibit different moods or expressions as one entity. A couple of these might include “Jetplane” and “Today Might Be The Hit. “Jetplane has this drum and bass beginning that feels super dancy, and Lorenz’s vocals come in that are fast and melodic, almost rapping. The instruments seemingly cascade in. The bass carries the song, as it’s clean, neat, and clear. The lyrics here are also “I’m building up a wall in the middle of my heart / ‘Til the tongue goes and rips it all apart,” and “Arrest me / I’m a hot freak / I’m bombastique.” The velocity of the song is exciting and fierce, and along with the lyrics, evokes a dark tinge of self-absorption and bitterness that feels just right on the ears. “Today Might Be The Hit” shares the velocity and urgency, and some as well sarcasm, like “Jetplane.” Right when the song starts, I just want to bop my head up and down as the drum beat is fast, and some jingles hit in unison with the snare drum. The guitar is mellow strumming, but then a pre-chorus comes in, and the guitar gets all twangy, and it swings hard, which makes the song bounce more. The first lyrics are of the song are “Today might be the hit / Or it won’t be shit / yada-yada-yada-ya,” and it’s funny because song feels like it really should be a hit song on the radio, while at the same time, the idea of thinking of or desire a hit song is made fun of. The bass rifts, the guitar stabs and melodic rifts are tactfully interjected all over the track and embellishes brilliant musical spacing and song composition that drives the song so freaking hard.
There is also the face of desire or some kind of yearning, of what it means and what it is and what it does. Asha Lorenz's vocals set the tone in the first song, “Echoes.” The song starts with shallow conversational singing. “We can go out just to get dressed up / I can wear whatever you want / No one else is around / I think we’re shooting in the dark.” She’s quiet, the drums are light and simple and the guitar is being played tenderly. In the next verse, the bass comes in and the song has a full body. What’s interesting here is that the quietness of Lorenz’s singing and the slow swell of the song—along with lyrics—make the emotional stakes sky high, and I can feel the tension of the song and it’s nice. The lyrical tension lies in desire and despair. Lorenz’s vocals further draw out this tension in the next verse after the course when she sings “We could end it here /or we can go back to the start / you can draw your line / well I can draw my dot / I think we’re losing now / I think we’re fucking it up.” And man, when she sings “losing” it feels desperate, like an angry cry. And when she says “fucking,” it’s breathless, which makes the phrases punchy, desperate, and lonely. The music video has two people painted in glitter gold and they appear to be twins. They sing the lyrics to each other emulating this torn relationship back and forth, echoing and echoing. They laugh, appear angry, happy, and delirious, all in different backdrops of spaces. I can feel this fight and the confusion and the desire and everything that comes with a relationship that swirls so unclearly while searching for something definitive in this song.
“Life in This Body” is not a dance song while it screams of yearning and desire and an attempt to touch reality or to feel grounded. There is eerie hollowed voice that sings the beginning, “I want to be out on the sea / to see no friends no family,” that sounds like it’s in the background, and slowly, this acoustic guitar swells slowly into the song, a warm tone over the cold voice. It feels scary in the lonely kind of way, like an emptiness, like being lost. Louis O’Bryen starts to sing and his voice bring’s more warmth, though it’s solemn. Lyrics that grab me are “Life in this body doesn’t feel the same / Like you’d always say, ‘It’s going up in flames’ / People always sell me, everybody changes / I have loved every version of you.” It’s possibly more of this back and forth of existing with the self and possibly somebody else and at the same time, this slow acoustic build that eventually blooms wide with string sounds and harmonies and call and response, builds on the coupling of lyrical and sonic tensions that just hits like a semi-truck.
The epic dark ballad “Into The Dark” is sulky and dripping in gothic eeriness. Lorenz’s voice drags and aches over the proverbial loss of harmony and says as much, “I don’t live here anymore / Goes harmony, the dark / there goes harmony.” Her melodies on the track are expansive as she explores octaves that mimic or escalate the mood. The guitar and bass are slow, crawling with and away from her vocals, which push and pull to raise the tension, becoming more and more distorted and fuzzy, before the song becomes symphonic and grand with big guitar strums and echoing drums.
Cosplay is an album that is easy and rewarding to listen to from start to finish. It’s stuffed to the brim with emotional guts and fruitfully charged with storytelling and sarcasm and fear and humor and satire and love and desire. The lyrics are mind bogglingy powerful. The sound is entirely fresh. It’s teeming with an incredible, agitated energy, a buzzing ball of light that explores all darkness. It’s an album that’s touching and feeling everything all at once. It’s a living thing that is full of desire and pain, and lives through joy in expression and release. It’s excellent on the ears with being unafraid to explore each little sound as the multitude of inexplicable feelings we have as humans, while at the same time seeing the humor and ironies that come with it. It’s vulnerable, entirely explosive, and continuously surprising.