Album Review renforshort - dear amelia

Straddling pop and rock, with a heavy injection of the intimacy of bedroom pop, renforshort’s ‘dear amelia’ blends Olivia Rodrigo-like dreamy lyricism (see ‘let you down’) with quintessential pop-rock instrumentals (‘hate the way you love me’) and presents it all via a distinct, youthful honesty. Citing Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda and UK guitar pop behemoth Yungblud as mentors, ren is a member of the impressive Travis Barker club, too, the prolific Blink-182 drummer brought in for ‘we’ll make this ok’, which combines guitar riffs and video game synths with flickering flow for one of the record’s standouts. Elsewhere, ‘don’t come back’ is anthemic, ‘better off’ is dark and bubbly, while sweeping closer ‘amelia’ and ‘i miss myself’ are subtly imbued with emotional intensity.