Album Review: Sorry's COSPLAY Explores Modern Desperation

6 hours ago7 min read1 comments

Sorry’s COSPLAY isn't just an album; it's a mixtape for the modern malaise, a collection of tracks that feel like scrolling through a doom-loop of digital despair set to a surprisingly danceable beat. The London duo of Asha Lorenz and Louis O’Bryen have crafted a work that captures the peculiar dissonance of 2025, where the frantic search for genuine feeling happens against a backdrop of AI-generated noise and bureaucratic indifference.It’s the sound of putting on a brave face—the 'cosplay' of the title—while your internal monologue is screaming. The opening one-two punch of 'Echoes' and 'JIVE' is a masterclass in this thematic whiplash.'Echoes' builds with a disorienting, layered production that mimics the overstimulation of a perpetual news feed, a sonic representation of the endless scroll. Then comes 'JIVE,' a track that initially tempts you with the promise of release, of swinging your hips and losing yourself in the moment.But Lorenz’s vocal delivery turns the plea into something more desperate, a performance of joy that cracks under the weight of reality. When she confesses, 'I don’t want to live like that/ I don’t want to live like this,' it’s the album’s devastating core—the moment the costume slips, revealing the raw, unvarnished desperation beneath.This isn't a new theme for music, of course; you can trace a lineage from the anxious post-punk of the late 70s to the slacker ennui of 90s alt-rock. But Sorry updates the genre for the algorithmic age.The production throughout COSPLAY is cleverly cluttered, incorporating glitchy electronics and samples that feel both organic and artificially manufactured, mirroring our own difficulty in distinguishing between the two. It’s an album that understands our pores have, as the original review noted, literally adapted to the 'slop,' and its genius lies in making art out of that adaptation. It doesn’t offer easy answers or a triumphant climax; instead, it sits with you in the uncomfortable in-between, a perfect, flawed, and deeply human soundtrack for a time when pretending is often the only way to get through the day.

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