U finds Underscores discovering dance-pop magic

It’s especially remarkable given Grey’s recent discography. Her last album, 2023’s standout Wallsocket, is an eclectic collection of musical short stories about a fictional American midwestern town; it’s certainly personal, but its storytelling is as sincere as it was difficult to read. It was only tangentially about you, and only tangentially about her.

Since that album, she’s risen to become electronic pop royalty in record time, delivering much-welcomed assists to Porter Robinson, Danny Brown, Yaeji, and Oklou. Those years of activity seem to have given her a new philosophy on her own music, and the title isn’t the only thing to show for it. U – a nine-track, featureless assembly of sensual love songs, euphoric drops, and the occasional come-downs – is a fundamental reshaping of Underscores’s artistry. Where her previous works were chaotically diverse in sound and style, U is consistent and tight as a drum; where her production was always larger-than-life, U is stripped back and measured; where Grey’s music was often themed on something bigger than herself, U zooms right in, presenting pop songs as immediately accessible and fun as they are genuinely heartfelt. And, like the best songs about romance, they’re all written in the second person.

The fun moments of U – which make up the majority of the album – bounce with a simultaneous Justin-Timberlake-and-Timbaland-esque swagger and the jitteriness of the best mid-2010s dubstep derivatives, melded by a truly consummate songwriter in Grey. It makes the album a true joy: hit after hit of Gen Z nostalgia, coalesced into something new. Over these tracks, Underscores fixates on love, sex, and fame: she begs to be buried in Los Angeles’s famed Hollywood Forever cemetery, whispers-in-ya-ear, and captures the joys of puppy love. But it isn’t all upbeat: she laments the friendzone over plucky, A.G. Cook-esque synths on “Lovefield” and tracks the ups-and-downs of a tense relationship through descriptions of smoke breaks on “The Peace”. The final track, “Wish U Well” – which starts with a noise collage somewhat reminiscent of Charli XCX’s “Track 10” before settling into a heart-rending breakup number (“It’s like nobody lives here anymore, it’s just you two and the coyotes”) – it becomes clear that this is both an album about Underscores and an album about “you”.

Underscores has always been a talented artist, capable of penning great pop music and great albums – some of which, in their sprawl, reached higher highs and covered more diverse terrain. But on U, she finds a clearly-defined, rounded-out identity in her music for the first time, and she delivers the most immediate and the most robust work of her career.