First article for the magazine and first review should go to the great underscores, which also inspired the "copycats" name
for the project, thanks to her collab track of the same name with Danny Brown.

So, I've been waiting for this album for almost a year now and it's finally here... and it didn't disappoint at all.

I already considered underscores one of the best things to happen in pop music in the last 15 years thanks to her previous
album, Wallsocket, a noise-pop (and at times indie rock) concept album based entirely on a fictional city full of head cases
and dead-end kids, of which chronicles go from robberies and shootings to betrayals, including sensitive topics like abuse
and violence. An extremely rich album compositionally and thematically, perhaps a little heavy at times for a pop album.
And it's precisely this "heaviness" factor on which this new record, U, plays on the most.

The themes are lighter, to the point of no longer being as relevant as on Wallsocket, and the production, though more
layered than on the previous album, clears away the noise and makes room for a precision and clarity of the sound typical of
more accessible pop. But as we all know, accessibility doesn't necessarily mean shit, and in fact I find U to be a much more
mature and conscious album than Wallsocket and the debut, Fishmonger.

The stylistic direction that underscores wanted to take in this new phase of her career had been clear for some time: it can be
traced back to Harvest Sky, from Oklou's hit record choke enough, on which underscores appears as a featured artist. An anomaly,
compared to what she was doing on Wallsocket. Harvest Sky is practically a dance track in its own right, a territory that underscores
had previously explored only in part. Then came Poplife by umru, again as a feature, which is mostly an hyperpop track, a genre
underscores experimented with on Fishmonger but never explored in depth thereafter. And then came Music, the lead single from U,
in June 2025, following in the footsteps of Poplife and presenting itself as an extremely stimulating piece of electronic pop. This was
followed by the second single, Do It, and by the incredible tracks with Danny Brown, Copycats and Baby, all sharing the same hyperpop
spirit that already seems to define the sound of underscores' third album.

Based on this process, completely caught up in the hype, I built an album in my head that sounded pretty much the way U actually
ended up sounding. And while I'm not surprised, I'm delighted, because rarely you do hear a great album that actually sounds the way you
expect it to. This album is pop, but not like other pop stuff. There's much more here, starting with the references, which are various. The first
thing that comes to mind is Imogen Heap, whose style and influence emerges in songs like "The Peace," built around vocal samples chopped
and pitched to form a brilliant riff that repeats throughout the song, and in Lovefield's great vocal lines. But there's also a fair amount of R&B
influence, the more commercial and often shitty kind of music from the first half of the 2000s, particularly in Innuendo (I Get U) and several
sections of Do It. The first three tracks, Tell Me (U Want It), Music, and Hollywood Forever, are moments of pure hyperpop energy, alternating
all throughout the album with top-notch vocals and a glitchy feel, that goes in contrast with the plastic-pop songwriting style derived from the
maxi mall music vibe expressed in the concept of the record. After reaching its final explosive peak with Do It, the album slows down
and allows itself a bit of air in the final tracks, Bodyfeeling, which partly recalls the more indie rock atmospheres explored in Wallsocket, and
Wish U Well.

There's a reason why I say this isn't a pop album like the others, and that reason is the enormous sensitivity and reverence with which underscores
approaches a certain type of chart-topping pop music. She's not the only one making pop music this way; there's a small scene that includes artists
like underscores, Oklou, Umru, Jane Remover, Ninajirachi, Gabby Start, and many others, who have taken a certain type of hyperpop from the
beginning of the decade and enriched it with a sensitivity and personality unique to each artist, starting a small revolution in pop that, starting
independently from places like SoundCloud and Bandcamp, has so far seen its peak with Charli XCX's Brat and that can only grow from here on
out. And it's records like U, independent pop products through and through, that inspire others to create more and make it clear that pop can
be this too, and not just bland supermarket music. Thank you, Underscores, for giving us this masterpiece.