underscores are an anomaly in the chaos vortex of hyperpop. The 25-year-old April Harper Grey approaches albums with the plotting skills of a novelist; 2023’s Wallsocket was themed after an imaginary Michigan town, for which she created a fake website complete with fictional mailing address, student newspaper, and “Moms of Wallsocket” discussion forum. Her songs overflow with hackneyed half-phrases and anachronisms that read like goofy proverbs. It can feel weird to even call her music “hyperpop”; its digital sheen is offset by an organic crunch, the raw bite of alt-rock riffs.
But when underscores unleashed “Music” at Knockdown Center hours before it dropped last week, it was clear that she’s forever the kid who grew up tinkering on SoundCloud and worshipping Skrillex. “Last night, I had a wet dream about the perfect song,” she coos, while what sounds like a hydraulic hole puncher pummels away in the background. There’s no shortage of glitzy pop pyrotechnics in these PB (post-BRAT) times, but the music of “Music” is endearingly askew, littered with little tonal jumps and ornate glitches. Grey turns abrasive percussion and 8-bit gurgles into the raw ingredients of desire. When I was growing up we had “Shawty’s like a melody in my head”; now it’s “When I’m with you, it feels like muu-sss-iiic” smeared against a rainbow of perfectly pixelated drops. This is for the people nursed on Monstercat, for collectors of Skullcandy headphones, for whom love in 2025 feels like a Syzy-ian EDM-trap eruption of noise.
