Everyone’s favourite Aussie is back! Troye Sivan has just released one of the most-anticipated records of the year (particularly for the girls, gays and theys). Something To Give Each Other is Troye’s first full-length album in half a decade, but the energetic palpability of this record is something worth waiting a lifetime for.
We’ve journeyed from the liberated pop of 2018’s Bloom, through to the tender, dreamlike sombreness of 2020’s In A Dream EP. This time around, Troye has worked with the likes of iconic industry producers Max Martin, A. G. Cook and OzGo to amplify the strengths of his past musical triumphs.
Pair this with Something To Give Each Other’s warm visuals and aesthetic of exhilaration, beaming joy, and skin-on-skin. Troye’s authentic vulnerability is captured in both its proudest and most quiet moments across the digital cover art, album sleeves and music video trilogy thus far.
Something To Give Each Other is a record that explores the thrills of physical intimacy and the emotionally crushing realities that accompany it. With an infectious sound and confessional lyricism, Something To Give Each Other shells the physicality of relationships – polishing it shiny on the upbeat dance tracks, while exposing it raw and unforgiving on the emotional hard hitters.
Something To Give Each Other is Troye at his best yet.
Opening track and lead single ‘Rush’ is arguably the queer anthem of the year. The sultry dance beat and the throbbing synth of the post-chorus production make for a track that’s viscerally pulsing. An iconic album opener – ‘Rush’ sets the scene for Something To Give Each Other’s kaleidoscopic aural scape. Standing as a powerful package, ‘Rush’ and its accompanying music video embody a mesmerising physicality. A pure celebration of queerness, Troye introduces you to the addiction to a feeling – or a person – that sparks a euphoria like no other.
‘What’s The Time Where You Are?’ continues to ride the waves of infatuation, with a mellow yet sparkling “open invite” to an international lover, with meta confessions of beats and grooves that he wishes were personified instead. As the album progresses, Troye delivers a heart-wrenchingly resigned admiration to straight male love interests on ‘One Of Your Girls.’ Troye lays it all out there with breathy, softer vocals paired masterfully against the robotic layered synth-echo on the chorus: “Give me a call if you ever get lonely / I’ll be like one of your girls or your homies.”
We’re then treated to the only feature on this album, as Troye joins forces with Spanish singer-songwriter Guitarricadelafuente on ‘In My Room’. Together, the pair create a vibey sense of escapism and pop nostalgia reminiscent of Blue Neighbourhood as they explore the confusion and chaos of crushing on someone. This duet offers a lighter reprieve from the deep-set heartbreak that stems from the yearning of the previous track.
Troye then cracks open the emotional heart of the record on ‘Still Got It.’ The slower, soulful acoustics immediately set this track apart, as Troye delivers heartfelt lyricism, confessing: “Cut my hair into a bowl after you told me that you liked it like that / Wish I didn’t care at all but now I’m in the mirror with scissors in hand.” The choral production emulates the golden glow that surrounds Troye’s muse. He shows us the duality and comedown of infatuation – and most strikingly – how it ages through time. The outro of this track, in particular, exhibits the malfunctioning of emotion and cries of the heart, that cut through in distorted and confusing ways, when running into an ex-lover. The production arc is a masterclass in cultivating the sensibility of rapidly passing time, while simultaneously being rooted solidly and painfully in place.
The emotions continue to run high as the melodies build slow and steady on ‘Can’t Go Back, Baby.’ Troye captures the grief of being blindsided and betrayed in love, stifling his ‘what-ifs’ with the curt truth that things can never return to an untouched past. Bearing heavy emotional weight in the body of this album, Troye then ascends once more with ‘Got Me Started’, the second lead single. Something To Give Each Other’s sonic cohesion allows for a seamless trust in this move to boost the mood and pick up the pace with another iconic dance number. This track also boasts the first and only sampling of Bag Rider’s iconic electronic 2011 track, ‘Shooting Stars’.
Troye continues to bring the energy on ‘Silly’ – masking anxious attachment as the most fun and flirtatious song at the bar. Self-professed “love junkie” Troye continues to spark the spur of a light-hearted recovery from the deep cuts of prior tracks. ‘Honey’ is next up, a touching portrait of hope and optimism, tied up with Troye’s signature ribbon of danceable beats: “I see love in every space.”
‘How To Stay With You’ closes Something To Give Each Other with an endearing honesty. Troye admits that he’s “a little bit f**ked on this”, toying between the possibility of building a life with someone, and the inability to bridge those desires with their current circumstances. Brimming with borderline regretful sentimentality, this track is an ode to the candid reality that more often than not, closure is a myth that leaves us to make sense of things ourselves. ‘How To Stay With You’ is a reminiscent and heartfelt think-piece that encapsulates the messy truths and confusion of love, sex, and life together – a piece charmingly emblematic of this body of work.
Something To Give Each Other is an album about connection. It is a champion of sexually-liberal escapism and queer celebration that showcases the soft, quietly suffered truths alongside moments that thrive. It’s an album about movement – dance. Journeys across the globe. Movement between emotional territories of yearning and acceptance, through love and heartbreak. It is a record personally stamped by Troye’s breathy vocals and conversational tone, enveloped by the best dance beats of any artist this year. With Something To Give Each Other, Troye Sivan gives a lot. This is a collection of work that has been created to be celebrated, shared, felt and passed on.
This album is my something to give you – a kiss on a dancefloor, a date turned into a weekend, a crush, a winter, a summer. Party after party, after party after after party. Heartbreak, freedom. Community, sisterhood, friendship. All that. <3
I love you!!!!!!!!
— 👼🏼 (@troyesivan) July 13, 2023
