ARTHUR's sophomore album does not fail to disappoint after Woof Woof's upbeat release into the alternative genre. I do not hesitate to say that he exceeds the already very high quality of his previous album, despite not garnering nearly as much success from it. I became a large fan of ARTHUR's music from fan animations of Petscop on YouTube, and as someone who connects heavily to the painful yet evoking themes of mental illness and warped identity present in both ARTHUR's music and Petscop, I find myself listening to songs from this album often, as well as for its use of unique and distorted instrumentals and undulating vocals.
(Fun fact: the music video for I Don't Want To Talk To You samples a sound effect from Petscop 11. This is certainly coincidence, given his music's popularity in Petscop circles arising after the publishing of this music video, but it is very interesting.)
This was definitely a hard pick between this and I Don't Want To Talk To You, but I always find myself very happy to listen to this song, and its length serves it well for not becoming repetitive on subsequent plays. The lyrics are wonderfully abstract and yet still portray a very clear picture of ARTHUR's intention to criticize the musical industry, and the general state of economics riding on hereditary inheritances. The instrumentals, as contrastingly harmonious as ever, mix well with the vocals to create the upbeat yet critical emotion ARTHUR intends to create. To make a long story short - it's a very good song!
I feel that, for the most part, this song is quite typical of ARTHUR's work and would normally be one I listen to frequently. However... I really just cannot stand the discordant instrumental opening. It's very distressing to me personally and it really puts me off every time I listen to it. That might just be a me thing, but that's the majority of the reason I don't like listening to it. Lesser so is the guest artist segment - though the talent of the artist is evident, the mixing of the vocals seem misplaced and tonally different from the rest of the song and just loses the immersion of ARTHUR's music. I don't dislike the concept of guest artist segments in general (see STOMACH BOOK's DEVIL NOBODY (feat. zombAe), it's one of my favorites), but here and in this manner it doesn't quite feel right for ARTHUR's music. This is albeit a small reason I don't really like listening to this song. You could skip it if you'd like, but I really feel each song on this album deserves at least one listen.