Ari Leff, known professionally as Lauv, has paved an interesting career for himself in the past few years, signalling himself as both a refreshingly candid pop artist and a delicate wordsmith, too. His 2022 album All 4 Nothing proved once again that his musical power lies in soft-melodic pop that confronts various themes of love, self-doubt and hope. Whilst perhaps not quite at the level of his previous work, such as 2020’s How I’m Feeling, Lauv’s recent work has maintained a reliable streak that consistently aims to expand pop’s capabilities into the overtly sincere and heartfelt.
Lauv’s new single ‘Love U Like That’ is mostly a misfire of a pop song that fails to do anything new for him as an artist or a lyricist. Its pop-infused melodies feel stale and without experimentation. Lauv tends to work best when piercing an emotional truth, a truth that often exposes pain surrounding love and loss. However, ‘Love U Like That’ sits almost entirely on the surface, refusing to dig below it. With Lauv there is always a layer of sentimentality to be found, and whilst this is still the case with ‘Love U Like That’, it comes across as less sincere than the highs of previous efforts, such as fan favourite ‘I Like Me Better’ or the toned down track ‘Canada’ from How I’m Feeling.
It does not take long for ‘Love U Like That’ to reveal its intentions as a bland pop effort, even if it retains a layer of melancholy trapped under layers of uninteresting pop synths that mostly fail to grab attention. They do not inform much, instead, they exist partially in the background. They do not feel signature to the sentiment of the song, because there isn’t really one. There is an attempt to mix them with a tonal blend of summer wistfulness, but these musical threads feel too intangible to put a stamp on ‘Love U Like That’.
The primary attention falls on Lauv, and whilst his vocals still carry an emotional depth that imbues some level of consequence to the track, his performance can do very little when he is singing these lyrics. In his previous work, Lauv’s lyricism feels pained but attempts to here fall a little flat. Lyrics like ‘And you’re kissing on my neck, I’m like, “Oh”’ and ‘Everything you do just turns me on’ might capture a young lustfulness that complements that wistful summer tone, but does not contain the character to convincingly bring these playful ideas to the surface.
Things do pick up when towards the latter half when Lauv brings his falsetto performance to the forefront. In these moments, the song finds the dreamy tone it should have led with. This dreamy tone finds the heart that Lauv works best with, capturing all of the confusion and desperation that comes with the experiences of young love. The pop sound picks up too, and with both working together to create a buoyancy that was originally missing, ‘Love U Like That’ does find a rhythm, even if briefly.
Compared to Lauv’s catalogue of pop songs, ‘Love U Like That’ fails to stand up confidently next to them. A track without identity or purpose, its worse crime ultimately is its inoffensiveness. Fans of Lauv will find something in his new single because there are moments of strong tonal work to be found. However, it seems that ‘Love U Like That’ is a track destined to exist in his back catalogue when compared to his stronger work.
Words by James Evenden
Support The Indiependent
We’re trying to raise £200 a month to help cover our operational costs. This includes our ‘Writer of the Month’ awards, where we recognise the amazing work produced by our contributor team. If you’ve enjoyed reading our site, we’d really appreciate it if you could donate to The Indiependent. Whether you can give £1 or £10, you’d be making a huge difference to our small team.