Underscores’s U-standout “The Peace” is a drumless heater
It’s a deceptively simple pop ballad from one of music’s most deft lyricists.
Photo courtesy of Underscores
My favorite Underscores (April Harper Grey) songs are historically drumless.
That’s why I found myself ironically most energized by the most understated track on Grey’s new pop record, U, “The Peace.” The track centers around a vocoder chord progression that reminds me of Imogen Heap or Frou Frou. Grey takes the retro reference and updates it for a very 2026 tale of modern romance, telling the story of a love that develops through a shared vanilla vape and cigarette hits in Brooklyn, Coachella, and Europe.
On it, Grey displays her tasteful aptitude for metaphor, seamlessly merging symbolism with clear emotional truth. “Let's find a hiding spot, I don't want nobody bumming these,” she sings after her and her crush’s second encounter. It’s subtle, but nevertheless relatably heart-tugging, as crushing and yearning collide with indecision and happenstance. It ends with Grey worrying about the inevitability of perpetual yearning: “I couldn't escape the vibe sleeping on the couch / It's always been like this and it might be forever.”
The song’s production still develops while remaining on its central vocoder refrain, with reverb and new harmonies entering the picture. But the whole composition is restrained for an artist and producer who can throw everything at the wall and make it work, no matter the genre — be it rock anthemics, proto-typical hyperpop-ified emo, or U’s light show-ready pop music.
Her prodigious production — always heavy on brain tingling detail and glitching flourishes — can sometimes obfuscate what I think is her strongest artistic quality: her songwriting. That’s why I find myself returning to songwriting-forward tracks by Underscores like the yarn-like “The fish song” (which Oklou recently covered), or the at-first-crazy and then austerely simple “Gunk,” which features one of my favorite musical climaxes of the 2020s.
I’m glad to say that in “The Peace” I found a new entry to one of my favorite micro-genres: Underscores’s singer-songwriter heaters.
