LANY is back with their glittering synth pop and warm poems for lyrics in their new Kinda EP.
With half of the summer already setting like the sun, this EP drops just in time for your next road trip before the heat dulls to a chill. These songs will bathe you in sunlight and turn you golden from the inside out. Through feel-good vibes, romantics, and smooth beats, LANY tells the story of an adolescent love from beginning to end. ‘Like you lots’ is love blooming. ‘Quit’ is the purgatory between friends and something more, a constant tug of war. ‘Pink skies’ is the cultivation of love. ‘Current location’ is watching that love slip through the cracks between your fingers. ‘Yea, babe, no way’ is reminiscence and allowing that love to sail away. ‘WHERE THE HELL ARE MY FRIENDS’ is the recovery period from a love lost.
Have you ever felt like you could spread your arms wide out like wings and fly? It's a deep sensation, and for an instance you experience freedom from reality and from the chains of the world. That's the feeling that ‘pink skies’ encompasses. It's jumping off a cliff, wind whispering through your bones, and falling straight into the arms of the person you care most about. It is being weightless. It is jumping off a cliff and falling in love. It is painting the sky with sunset hues, dark yellow and light pink and soft blue. It is love. “Get you under pink skies, I know exactly where we should go, ‘cause I love the way your green eyes mix with that Malibu indigo. Talking under pink skies, I think our hearts are starting to show. And it's better, you and I, under pink skies.”
Despite its fairly upbeat tempo and alluring electronic melodies, ‘current location’ is a very melancholy tune. Frontman Paul Klein's soft voice mixed with the ambient background noise is calming in a nostalgic way. The lyrics, however, create a depth in your chest, a longing. It feels like becoming frayed at the edges. "Don't make me look stupid for waiting just to lose you. Love me, can you prove it?" When I listen to this song, I'm sitting in the back of a Greyhound bus on a November night listening to the engine purr while tears stream down my face. I'm ignoring the stares of strangers and gazing out the windows watching the skyline and twinkling lights of Chicago fade into the black blanket of the night. I am longing, nostalgic, desperate, and forlorn. It's that sheer yearning for something you can never have, a haunting feeling burrowing between your lungs. This song will make you feel as if you're the one sitting in an airport watching your loved one board their one way plane without a second glance your way. It is beautifully crafted--a serene song with words that will have you falling.
‘Quit’ is glossy pink lips breathing warmth onto your skin, murmuring, “I’m here right now, just be here right now with me.” It is laying in bed, tangled up is fresh sheets as the morning sun filters in through the shades and illuminates the specks of golden dust floating through the air. ‘Quit’ is the serenity of watching a lover slip out of bed to get dressed just to pull them back into the mattress and will them to stay a while longer. Romance and endearment are sewn into the electronic chords and guitars. Affection reverberates through a tranquil voice. “Quit running away.”
Do you ever miss someone you can’t allow yourself to miss? When the world is quiet like a ghost town in the middle of the night and darkness surrounds you, that one person you’re still trying to bleach out of your mind slithers their way back into your head and suddenly you’re reliving every moment you’ve ever shared with them. “Damn, tell me where we went wrong. Been in love for so long, now it's over. How, how did we get this far and still not know who we are? Is this really over?” ‘Yea, babe, no way’ is a lonely song about missing that someone you will never know again, watching them turn their back and drift away into a stranger.
Whenever I introduce someone to LANY, I usually show them ‘WHERE THE HELL ARE MY FRIENDS’ first. It's one of my favorite songs by them due to its catchy glowing synth beat and relatable lyrics. I've had my fair share of Friday nights alone at home hiding behind a laptop screen probably watching Netflix. "I don't know why I don't have anyone on a vacant night. Where the hell are my friends?" The lyrics are slightly dismal if you take a closer look at them, but overall, it is a song that needs to be sung as loud as you can. It will make you dance and smile and laugh, and you will feel a little less alone on those vacant nights.
All in all, this EP is a work of art and a necessity for your summer playlist. Whether at the beach or in the sun, LANY will have the perfect background music for the moment. You will find love again in the words of these songs. Catch LANY on their upcoming The Kinda Tour, where (as the name suggests) they will be performing these romantic melodies live.
