A TikTok sensation that highlights the commonality of human pain when it comes to relationships that have failed. Shane Michael Boose, known as the artist Sombr, released the album ‘I Barely Know Her’ in August of this year. It quickly became wildly popular, reaching the top 20 of the billboard 200 and winning him a VMA.
This is Sombr’s first studio album, and comes after years of singles and eps— starting in 2021 with the single ‘nothing left to say’. All of his work carries a distinct feeling of suspended reality. There is something in the way that the instrumental is formulated that makes you feel as if you are being transported into a moment of your past that is still hazy from becoming a memory.
The instrumental attempts to convince you to romanticise the things that can go wrong in the ruins of a relationship. This seems at odds with lyrics which present an idealised view of the previous relationship: overshadowing the mostly non-romanticised current relationship. The way that the instrumental seems to draw you into each song more than the lyrics could be due to the fact that in an interview with MTV, Sombr revealed that for his song writing process he often starts with the beat first and the lyrics come after. His lyrics work in tandem with the instrumental to weave a narrative that is very evocative of the way most people feel when they experience emotional turmoil.
The singles of the album tell a tale of yearning “from the hours of 12 to 12” for someone that can never be quelled. ‘12 to 12’ is a tale that from the beginning is filled with questioning about whether their “hearts still beat in tune”, and instead grows into something the other person lets go. Sombr’s second single— ‘back to friends’— is filled with notions of forgetting or pretending,“I’m someone you’ve never met”.
The third single, ‘undressed’, compounds on the idea of changing feelings, described as “the glimmer” in their eyes. As he is not yet ready “for a new person”, the song highlights the internal turmoil of having a relationship end before you are ready to let them go.
In the last single, ‘we never dated’ it seems as if Sombr is coming to terms with the fact he “can’t make [her] love” him: he finally decides for himself that it is over. While the lyrical narrative is dominated by her: it is ultimately written by him.
Listeners can hear he reclaims the narrative, but still carries the thread of romanticisation for the past and for her. The whole piece feels like a fantasy, one which gives you the ability to peak into his life and see parts of your own life reflected back at you.