Review: underscores — U

underscores
U
Mom + Pop
Street: 03.20.2026
underscores = 100 Gecs + Ninajirachi + Madonna

Pop music is a complicated thing. The sweet spot usually falls in the middle of cotton candy, sugar crush bliss and the gut-kick sugar rush sick of throwing up in the sink. On her new album, April Harper Grey turns a noise-fueled, electronica-drenched beehive into a futuristic dance party, creating a tsunami-size sea change for all the kids, even those who never step onto a dance floor.

As I am writing this, Madonna‘s new album Confessions II is the number one album in both the United States and the U.K. Madonna is the past that still exists in the “right now,” and underscores is the future who understands the past, and exists in the same “right now” as the Queen.

underscores is an artist who highlights and stresses the importance of being in the moment. Active in a musical space she created, underscores is exploiting and manipulating that space, that moment until all oxygen has been sucked out.

The opening track “Tell Me (You Want It)” gets the party started with a beautiful, glitchy, hyper-pop power buzz. Grey unleashes jaw-dropping, genre-jumping shifts with bass-heavy beats, dubstep, waves of reverb and reverse vocal sampling. Grey incorporates a Kesha singing style of speak-sing mumbling and candy-wrapped raps that build up into a power-pop, punk-style edge.

Grey sings in the soft, warm, sensitive timbre of a mezzo-soprano, and she floats her voice gently over the top of the noise onslaught below. “I probably wouldn’t have come,” Grey sings on the opening track, “But who doesn’t want to be invited / Well, maybe I might’ve.” Grey continues to hammer down the title “Tell Me (U Want It)” refrain over and over, with a dizzying amount of beat switches and tempo changes that come so fast it spins the head. underscores can give you vertigo in the best possible kinds of delicious ways.

“Last night, I had a wet dream / ‘Bout the perfect song,” Grey sings on the frenetic track “Music” — a heart-stopping thriller. “There’s something up with you / That I just can’t get a read on / When you walk into the room / It’s like you have a theme song.” Grey finishes out the track singing her blueprint: “Pop rock, electronic, rap, rock n’ roll / Bass bump, supersonic won’t you take me home? / Nonstop avant-garde talking on the phone.” It’s clear Grey doesn’t give a fuck. Anything goes on this record, and Grey isn’t afraid to throw the kitchen sink.

Grey continues to crush with the tracks: “Hollywood Forever,” “Lovefield,” the savage, raw and addictive “Do It” and the Britney Spears Blackout-era homage “Innuendo (I Get U).” The record ends with the sad girl ballad “Wish U Well” about mourning lost love and playing with the tear-jerker. The song feels like right at the very end, Grey decided to hit the brakes, allowing the listener to catch a breath before the record completes. 

Madonna may always be the Queen, but underscores doesn’t care. She doesn’t try to emulate her. She straight up rattles the fucking cages. If you have been paying attention to the shadows, it’s where underscores has been drifting, tip-toed at the edges, waiting to pounce. With U, Grey steps up to the plate and swings for the masses. Everyone else is now on notice. —Russ Holsten

Read more music reviews by Russ Holsten:
Review: Olivia Rodrigo — you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love
Review: Lemon Twigs — Look For Your Mind!

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