underscores’s “unlimited love” shows off her greatest skill
Taking her favorite references, putting them in a blender, and creating something distinctly hers.
Madonna, Britney Spears, SOPHIE, and Charli xcx are just a few of the influences that informed underscores' latest album U. Some of those influences I hear clearly, like on "Innuendo" where her breathy gasps, which act more like a percussive device, feel super "Toxic"-coded. Others are more ambiently dispersed, only detected through underscores' technical skill or melodic instincts.
On her new song "Unlimited Love," a scrapped cut from U, however, her devotion to her musical heroes are right there, out in the open. The track opens on what sounds like a sample from Madonna's "Vogue" before diving into the electronic depths of metallic clashes and walloping smacks — chaos that could live right alongside SOPHIE's "Ponyboy." It is a scintillating and textural delight and one of the boldest and most expansive examples of underscores' greatest talent: taking sounds that are familiar and twisting them into completely new musical sentences.
Like the rest of U, "Unlimited Love" expands on underscores' vision for pop music that's boundless, euphoric, and filled to the brim with potential. Her production is the star: sharp, angular, and filled with interesting ideas like zippy, high-pitched squeaks and a disco-y guitar breakdown. The stupidly addictive, 3D-sounding smack that animates the entire track, is the song's backbone. It sounds like a clobber to the face or the sonic translation of getting slammed with a lust so fierce it's violent. One can't separate that sound from SOPHIE, but in underscores' hands its severity becomes something more playful.
Lyrically, underscores sings about love in her signature slippery and coy way, somehow coming across as funny, sincere, and sympathetic at the same time. "I just want a bit of your unlimited love supply," she sings, before adding her conditions: "No, I don’t want you loving me / I just want your capacity / I’m not a real lover, baby."
Despite the clear references on "Unlimited Love," I finish each listen feeling like I heard something new. Only underscores could think to mash all of these elements together and will the creation of something so ostentatious and maximalist. If her love is like music (as she says it is), it really is unlimited.
