★★★★☆
Synthwave and electro-pop sounds haunt and enrich each song on Troye Sivan’s new album, Something to Give Each Other. The two genres are elevated through Sivan’s lyricism and musical prowess and are presented under an unapologetic queer lens and with an underlying sexiness.
Something to Give Each Other marks Sivan’s third full-length album and was released on Oct. 13, five years after his album Bloom.
The intimacy of the newly released album is immediately displayed in its length—the album is only 10 songs, with each song tied to a different story. Despite the unique independence of each song, all are connected through the theme of love and how the human experience is affected by it.
“Can’t Go Back, Baby” narrates the competing feelings of love and betrayal toward a previous relationship with pained annoyance. Contrastingly, the weight of the heartbreak does not deter Sivan from the love of his previous partner, a partner whom he describes a confusing post-relationship meeting with.
“Can’t Go Back, Baby” repeats its title over and over in a melancholic tone, a haunting reminder that Sivan’s partner brutally destroyed the love they shared.
This love that’s being described is not only referring to a love for another person—it can also indicate a love for life. Such love is exemplified in the album’s first track, “Rush.” An energizing tune from start to finish, the song immediately transports the listener to the club with its electronic dance music–adjacent beat while retaining the sexiness vibing with a stranger at the club.
Keeping with the theme of love, Sivan then muses about a particular queer experience and its difficulties in “One of Your Girls.” On this track, Sivan describes feeling like he is being led on by someone who is still figuring out their identity, and so he agrees to hide the relationship.
“One of Your Girls” is a prime example of Sivan’s musical genius presented through the usage of sound production and music theory. He strategically uses the relationship between major and minor scales to help get the narrative point across.
The track starts in a major key when Sivan is gushing over his lover’s handsome face and then turns to a minor key when the main conflict is revealed at the end of the chorus. The robotic effect placed over the chorus is a deliberate choice by the artist as it best reflects his feelings at the time.
“Like I was expected to be there when they wanted me, then disappear when they freaked out, then be there again when they wanted,” Sivan said in an interview with Apple Music. “Like this emotionless object. And yet there I was time and time again.”
The mellow track “How to Stay With You” ends the album with a tale of separation, where Sivan writes about feeling lost and cloudy in a relationship to the point of not knowing what to do or say to make it work. Even as the album ends on a sad love story, the hope of new connections and an exciting new day lingers. The song winds down as Sivan alludes to the difficulty of a fresh start in the very last verses of the album.
“Startin’ again when I got all I wanted / Startin’ to feel a little bit despondent,” Sivan sings.
Something to Give Each Other presents how the cycle of love and heartbreak can be composed of both exhilarating and painful experiences. Sivan still chooses to love all of them despite their resolutions. He believes that people need to stay hopeful when they need love the most.
In Something to Give Each Other, Sivan manages to capture the duality of life, but leaves the listener ecstatic and positive. Through this analysis of connections in his life, Sivan places the listener at the scene of the events, creating a soundtrack to accompany them.
