‘Somebody Else’ - at times spellbinding, at others baffling - proves to be the perfect home straight into The 1975’s bonkers second strike. ‘I Like It When You Sleep…’ is a confused, confounding record. Like a panicked joke from someone who’s unwillingly let down their emotional guard, it’s a disappointing yank back down to earth.
Tongue in cheek, perhaps, but it’s an irony-meter busting moment that crumbles ’Somebody Else’’s more admirable, even (whisper it) heartfelt sentiments. “Get someone you love, get someone you need - fuck that, get money,” he squawks at the track’s mid-point, in the most ’sorry, what?’ moment since Kanye’s last tweet-storm. Snatching at influence from all over, ‘Somebody Else’’s kaleidoscopic mishmash of R’n’B du jour only serves to drown out The 1975’s signature in the process. Despite his insistence that ‘Somebody Else’ is “a straight up 1975 song”, it instead feels like he’s desperate to live up to the track’s title. Genius is the ultimate source of music knowledge, created by scholars like you who share facts and insight about the songs and artists they love. This ain't the last time that I'll see your face. But I'm picturing your body with somebody else. I'm looking through you while you're looking through your phone. When that dreamscape’s pulled away, though, Healy seems desperate to squeeze his way into someone else’s leather trousers. You're intertwining your soul with somebody else. “I don’t want your body, but I hate to see your body with somebody else,” he laments, a dizzying depiction of that gut-punch moment lost love brings.
“I took all my things that make sound,” he half-whispers, “the rest I could do without.” Hauntingly honest, it’s a chink-in-the-armour depiction of heartbreak like we’ve never seen from the band before.
Lyrically, Matty Healy finally lays himself bare in the emotional sense, rather than just whipping off his top and skipping about, bottle of plonk in hand and fingers in his ears.Īt its best, it’s captivating. Gentle and soft-of-touch, it’s a slow jam in every sense of the word.
Battering its audience over the head with a handbag full of glitter, ‘Love Me’, ‘UGH!’ and ‘The Sound’ have revelled in confusion by cabaret. Brash and blinding, The 1975’s return has attempted to dazzle at every turn.