The Kid LAROI’s Nights Like This: A Cocktail of One Part Pop Star and Two Parts Doom

The Kid LAROI (La-Roy) has had an interesting and meteoric career. He is an Australian artist of Aboriginal descent with family connections to Kamilaroi land in NSW and Southern QLD who jumped to stardom with his track Stay with Justin Bieber. He then used that stardom to land a hit on The Barbie soundtrack and has continued his rise with some successful solo records of his own. Well, he is back with a single, which seems to hint at an evolution from his pop R&B / electro formula.

His two track single Girls consists of the title track, which sits firmly within The Kid LAROI’s pop milieu; however, the track Nights Like This covers some interesting ground. Musically, this is a claustrophobic track that is bordering on oppressive. The heavy droning synth with sparse snare and deep bass has a Blade Runner sci-fi dystopia vibe. This is very unlike his previous work, even the title track of the single, which is largely dominated by pop pass/synth lines, glittery keyboard and bright fun. Having said that, the track is still a groove that you will fell yourself moving to. It’s just the weight of it is unlike what I have heard form him recently, but it has me excited to see where he goes int he future.

Lyrically and vocally this is both familiar and unexplored territory. Lyrically he is getting into the complexity of relationships and how you can both miss someone and know it’s not going to work out. This is not unfamiliar territory for The Kid LAROI and it’s the kind of themes his fans expect. What they might not expect is the vocal experimentation. He will go from a low vocal range to his well known high pop register, while the mix plays fast and loose with his vocal. At times it is front and centre, while at other times it is back behind the syth lines in a way that has them being muscled out of the track. I find what they do with his vocal, and what he does with his range, in this track interesting and compelling.

This 1:20ish track on the b side of a single has a throwback vibe to when bands would toss a live version or cover on the back of a 45 just to release it and see how it did. The b side of singles during the late 60s and 70s was an experimental time where you just threw stuff out there. Nights Like This has that vibe. The title track on side a is the pop single for the club and side b is the wild west where anything goes. I love that and I love him taking a chance on the arrangement here and vocal. I hope this will bring more experimentation with his sound on his next record, because this experiment was a success.

Listen to Nights Like This