Sombr has easily become my favorite artist, topping my Spotify monthly streaming minutes and taking a place in my heart over the past couple of years. His new album, “I Barely Know Her,” released in August, is no exception.
I previously wrote about seeing sombr live at the Filmore in Philadelphia in the summer of 2024, and not to exaggerate, but that experience completely changed my life. I started listening to sombr when he had 3,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, and he blew up overnight; now, with over 56,000,000 listeners. Sombr’s music found me at the exact right time, through my TikTok For You page. I was dealing with the breakup of my over three-year-long relationship, and his music resonated deeply with the emotions I was feeling at the time.
I spent the entire concert sobbing in the small crowd and got to meet sombr afterwards and tell him how much his music meant to me. With his debut album, “I Barely Know Her,” I feel like he hit even deeper parts of my psyche that I didn’t know existed.
Especially with experiences and relationships I’ve had since that first breakup, this album hits every aspect of dating, yearning, missing, and all the other emotions you feel during and at the end of relationships.
I love that listeners can hear sombr’s own healing journey through the progression of his music, from “caroline,” “weak,” and “sihloette,” published in 2022 and 2023, to this new album; the very beat and rhythm of his music is becoming more upbeat.
Yet, he still maintains the themes of longing and heartbreak.
“Under the mat” is my favorite song off the album, and I love the metaphors woven into the lyrics.
More than ever, sombr is opening up about the specifics of his life, explaining his New York upbringing that shaped his relationship. The themes of this album flow between all his songs, with “canal street” beginning by detailing the very neighborhood he grew up in and the pain of returning to all of the memories with his ex.
I feel the same way when I return home, too. “I wish i knew how to quit you” delves into living with his partner in Brooklyn, where he details putting her on the kitchen counter as they kiss. He details living in a tiny apartment right out of school with the person he thought was the love of his life, the end-all, be-all.
Then, “under the mat” pulls on this apartment motif, using the metaphor that she locked him out, both of her life and of their apartment. But, she “left a key under the mat,” giving him an “in” back into her life, if he is brave enough to use it.
He goes on to explain that he has been “too afraid to act.” Continuing with the metaphor of the apartment, he says, “Oh, it’s coming off the hinges, from the wall, it has detached / Oh, and I’ve known this for a while, but I am still too afraid to act.”
His lover’s walls are falling; she tried to keep him out, but can’t anymore. She is coming back to him, but now, he is too afraid to restart this relationship after all of their history. Yet, many of his other lyrics suggest that this is all he has ever and still wants.
There’s so much nuance with the end of a relationship, and sometimes, the most respectful thing you can do is never reach out again. Even when you want to, even when it feels nearly impossible not to. This concept ebbs and flows throughout the album. There are moments where he is almost okay, and moments where he backtracks. Almost two years out of my relationship, I am still ebbing and flowing through those stages.
The album also touches on the inevitable post-long-term relationship “situationship.” Honestly, I think situationships have been the theme of the year; everyone is going through them, and even Taylor Swift herself wrote about this same phenomenon.
Most obviously is “we never dated,” which, to be blunt, my summer situationship sent to me saying: “Hey, that’s like us.” I about died of shame.
But the lyrics are damning. These partners know how to play the game and make it seem like they would be the ideal partner if they could just commit, but it’s never the case. Sombr dives into the realization that the idea of the relationship is “nice to romanticize,” but that isn’t reality.
I think “come closer” could also be about this situationship, with lines alluding to loving “halfway” and the impossibility of doing so. He does a great job of depicting the yearning, the push and pull, of being with someone who won’t fully commit to you.
Each song on this album stands in its own, but together on this debut album, sombr pulls on all the themes of young dating in ways that are both hyper-specific to his own life and relatable to his millions of listeners.
