Review Summary: Thanks, I hate it
I was introduced to the (until recently) wonderful music of Glass Animals with 2016’s
How To Be A Human Being. As I digested the record and backtracked into the even better
Zaba, I found myself spellbound by the delightfully weird and pop-inclined band in a way that rivaled perhaps only my middle school Gorillaz zealotry. Plenty of people disliked
Dreamland, but I was not among them – sure, it sacrificed some of the band’s more off-the-wall explorations in favor of streamlined, catchy capital-P
Pop, but it was still sonically interesting, and something about its hazy vibes matched what that pandemic summer actually felt like...some kind of bizarre dream. For a while, it seemed like Glass Animals could do no wrong – a feeling that extended into April of 2024 when they kicked off
I Love You So F***ing Much’s promotion with the gorgeous and utterly romantic single, ‘Creatures In Heaven’. They had the world at its knees, and it felt inevitable that the band’s fourth LP would rival their very best work.
Now, we’ve arrived at the actual release of this thing, and it’s…not good. Gone are the twists, humor, and ambition of
Zaba and
HTBAHB. Gone is the mesmerizing atmosphere of
Dreamland, along with all those earworm melodies. I’m not sure exactly what we’ve been left with, to be quite honest with you, although the closest approximation I can make is some amalgamation of modern day OneRepublic and Coldplay. The songwriting is
bland to the point that multiple songs have near identical melodies and beats, and those same melodies and beats all bear a passing resemblance to ‘Heat Waves’ – probably uncoincidentally, considering that is their most streamed song by a fairly wide margin. Lead singer/frontman Dave Bayley spends the majority of this record wailing in a needlessly high-pitched falsetto, the overabundance of which makes it lose all of its intrigue. What passes for interesting is the pointlessly abrupt ending to ‘whatthehellishappening?’, or the pretty cool beat that launches ‘A Tear in Space (Airlock)’ only to have the song crash and burn into repetition and a disappointing chorus. Closer ‘Lost in the Ocean’ aims for a more introspective sound, but like so much of
I Love You So F***ing Much, there’s almost no believable emotion behind the music. It’s all aesthetic with very little form; the entire thing is so enhanced and overproduced that listeners will be lucky to come away from this thing cancer-free.
I’ll defend ‘Creatures in Heaven’ because it’s a heartfelt track with some great lyrics and a strong hook – and a case could easily be made for 'Wonderful Nothing' as well – but the remainder of
I Love You So F***ing Much is comprised of underwritten songs that the band slapped a shit load of varnish on and passed off as a finished product. Any moments that show a little bit of potential are quickly squandered, and I’ve spent more time than I’d care to admit trying to rearrange this tracklist into something that either allows the more captivating ideas to shine or that at least delivers a more satisfying, appealing flow. There’s just
so very little here to work with, and even as a listener who’s dying to find things to like about this album, every minute spent revisiting it feels like a minute wasted. I sure hope they have it in them to rebound from this disastrous release.
