Montreal-born singer/songwriter laye sinks her sorrowfully sharpened teeth into heartbreak on her new song “unhappier.” A creator of doom-and-gloom alt-pop, she made her 2019 debut with lonesome and since then has continued to ascend as an enthralling voice of gothic allure. Her latest single serves as another bleak dive into the depths of her stygian heart — although this time laye refuses to be the only one suffering.
“unhappier” offers a viscerally honest look at heartache as more than just reactionary sadness. One that nurses the wounds of lovelorn grief by invoking this secretly malicious hope that the person who broke your heart is just as miserable. Against a backdrop of mournful riffs the gloaming vocals of laye radiate with a smoldering warmth meant to be searing as well as woefully heart-wrenching.
“So do you go back and forth / like your hearts still stuck at war,” she stings. “When sparks fly i hope it burns / i hope you are unhappier.” Her lyricism is as harrowing and raw as ever, tapping all the anguished vitriol that gushes forward the moment a former lover moves on to another. “Think of me when you’re in her,” she desperately commands. “She’s making you miss me more.”
The new single “unhappier” also comes with a music video that envisions the despair and anger that laye conjures up amidst its clamorous rock. True to her haunting aesthetic, the film opens with her wandering a sunlit verdant meadow before the scenery darkens and becomes slightly nightmarish. Standing on the edge of a pond she suddenly falls in, the camera reeling to capture her upside-down plunge into the azure water.
As she writhes beneath the surface, a reflection of her ex-lover appears above her as he tauntingly embraces his new sweetheart. And even when laye is able to clamber out of the water, she is still haunted by this painfully intimate vision of this person with a vice-grip on her heart touching another person.
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On the new single, laye elaborated: “[‘unhappier’] is a breakup song written from the perspective of someone who really doesn’t wish that person well. At the root of it, though, it’s still a love song. You love that person so much that you can’t yet wish them well. So many songs are either all about ‘I love you’ or all about ‘I hate you,’ but it’s also truer to the human experience to feel different and sometimes contradictory things at the same time. So, this song lies somewhere in between.”
Visit laye on their website, TikTok, and Instagram to stay updated on new releases and tour announcements.
Words: Steven Ward
Watch the music video for “unhappier” the new single from laye below!
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