Release Date: November 12, 2021 Genre: Pop Punk, Pop Rock Label: Hopeless Records LØLØ is the musical moniker of Toronto singer-songwriter Lauren Mandel. She's back with her sophomore EP, overkill. Straight off the Pop Punk's Still Not Dead Tour -a thirty-six-date tour of the United States with New Found Glory, Less Than Jake, and Hot Mulligan- LØLØ announced her signing with the independent record label Hopeless Records and the release date of her brand new six-track EP. overkill is the follow-up to her Sweater Collection EP (2019) and sees her reinvent herself by moving away from pop/bubblegum pop and into the realm of pop-punk, pop-rock, and indie-pop. overkill was co-produced between Giordan Postorino (Alessia Cara) and Benjamin Thomas (Lil Uzi Vert, Post Malone). Last year, LØLØ turned to TikTok to channel her boredom during the bulk of the pandemic, where she reimagined some of music's biggest hit songs, and it created a hell of a buzz on the platform. By putting her songwriting and lyrical skills to the test, she rewrote verses to songs from the opposite perspective of each song's subject while maintaining the integrity of each song's tempo, rhyme schemes, and themes. Most notably was her version of Taylor Swift's "Betty," written from the perspective of Betty. The TikTok video caught wind with Taylor's fanbase -also known as Swifties- and it immediately went viral, leading it to accumulate over half a million views.
LØLØ's overkill EP opens with the massive pop-punk number "death wish." The track is very guitar-driven and blurs the lines between pop-punk, pop-rock, and even punk rock with those heavy-handed power chords. The collection of six songs tackle everything from angst, anger, cynicism, relationships, depression, and more. "death wish" features a stunning chorus, and if you were to dissect more into the song's meaning after you hear the line, "I kill everything I've ever loved," you find out that the track is about LØLØ's "knack for killing." However, not in the literal sense. It first started when LØLØ was five years old when she accidentally killed her first pet goldfish, Goldy -a pretty common occurrence for a child if you ask me. Now, since LØLØ has grown up, this has escalated to her relationships, which tend to end due to self-sabotage.
While all six tracks are guitar-driven, rowdy, and witty pop-punk/pop-rock tracks, a couple of songs that need mentioning are "hurt less," "u look stupid," and "surgery." First off, "hurt less" is a track that LØLØ has been teasing the last couple of weeks on her social media, and it's a sure-fire future fan favourite -and it's one track I'd love to see a live crowd go absolutely wild too. It's also the EP's most infectious track while lyrically being ruthlessly honest. Secondly, with "u look stupid," LØLØ draws elements from further down the sub-genres of pop and hip-hop. The track interestingly puts power chords over a hip-hop-style beat and features deep electronic bass drops. Last but not least, "surgery" is drastically different from the EP's previous five tracks taking things down to a full-blown acoustic emo track. The track is a wonderful but subtle touch to slow down the intensity of the first five tracks and finish out overkill while staying right in the same vein with the theme of the entire EP. Since the release of her Sweater Collection EP in 2019, LØLØ has found a new side of her that will absolutely push her straight to the top. Hearing LØLØ with this newfound alternative side of herself is not only refreshing but seems to be the sound she should've always been performing -but sometimes you have to experiment to find your groove. The old LØLØ was just as good in her own right, but now craving her own mark into the pop-punk scene during the most recent resurgence of the genre, with her witty and eccentric songwriting and lyrical style, LØLØ will rise to stardom with much more in the young artist's tank. Be sure to presave LØLØ's overkill EP here.
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