Sueco has said sayonara to traditional labels and is going it on his own with his sophomore album, Attempted Lover. After dropping the emotion-pulling “Mulholland Drive,” the fast-paced “Drama Queen,” and the fuck off banger, “Outta My Head,” this talented genre-smasher has pushed out 9 more fantastic songs that are perfect for this summer weather.
I’ll say right off the bat, Attempted Lover is phenomenal! Sueco hit it out of the park. But, like every single song among Sueco’s many hard-hitting musical experiences, this album is filled with its own twists and turns that’ll take listeners for a ride through their own life experiences in less than an hour.
So, just how deep does Sueco go with his sophomore album? Let’s find out.
Not what I was expecting at all coming off the three singles already released. But, “Wreck” quickly became one of my favorite songs included on Attempted Lover. The acoustic work throughout the less than 3 minutes was pure bliss for my senses and it honestly took me a good 5+ plays before I continued onwards. I’m a sucker for good acoustic songs.
“Fuck growing old/I’ll be young till the day I do,” this string of lyrics, oh my, I loved the build-up, the payoff, and just everything else encompassing the raw emotion into the next string, “‘Cause no one makes it out alive.”
The stripped-back intro though a surprise, brought a welcome smile to my face. I haven’t been this moved by an album’s intro song since blink-182’s “ANTHEM PART 3.” I’m incredibly hard on album openers, closers, and title tracks, and Sueco legit hit any expectations I had out the window. His blistered vocal delivery and Thursday-esque vibrato brought me to the edge and I can’t wait to hear this live.
Dropping right into the album’s latest single, “Outta My Head” builds up the tension picked up by the end of “Wreck,” creating an immersive bridge that truly showcases Sueco at his best; loud, cohesive, and letting listeners close in on his stitched up heart.
A bit closer to what listeners expect from a Sueco bop, “Outta My Head” doesn’t just follow the artist’s usual formula. Instead, Sueco throws listeners for a whirlwind of painful vocals and easy-to-follow instrumentals, painting the perfect picture of agony and a clear thought process as he sings, “Found out that heaven is a place/Where you’re outta my head,” an increasingly relatable sentiment that I and many would likely share.
“Outta My Head” is the gasoline while Attempted Lover as a whole is the dry brush waiting to burn up. It’s an explosive mess of pure passion not seen since the years of LiveJournal. This is a track I can picture many gravitating to while they scroll through the album’s many options late at night.
Continuing the album’s trend of getting stuck in listeners’ heads, “Somebody Else” brings back more of what fans loved about Sueco’s previous album, It Was Fun While It Lasted, while once again, throwing the typical formula for a bit of a spin, creating yet another immersive soundscape filled with raw-emotion and earworm capable elements that’ll ensure “Somebody Else” stays around for a good while.
Instrumentally, “Somebody Else” is a fast-paced, crazy wall of sound that got my blood flowing, my head banging, and just my body overall pumped up as I felt the urge to jump out of my chair and just go crazy moving around the house like I stepped into the world created around the track.
“Somebody Else” is definitely the track I’ll show my friends and family who have never listened to a Sueco song in their lives. Especially, if I want them to get as hooked as I am. Yet another banger that can only be elevated in a live show setting that has me excited to see what the artist will include in his upcoming setlists.
Looking to transform your room into the next hottest nightclub in town? “Bathroom Floor” will do just that as the odd experience transported me into the neon light-filled underworld that’s the sub-mind painted by Sueco himself. Everything about this track is far from the usual paint-by-numbers EMO-rap approach and attempts to push boundaries while just being an overall fun, let-go experience.
Sueco’s EMO-rap, hyper-pop hybrid is the perfect mix of weird, outstanding, and just pure balls to the walls that I can’t keep away. The overall weirdness of the track has my attention fixated so perfectly that I can’t look away and throughout writing this review I found myself pressing replay just short of the track finishing to fill this weird urge this song seems to leave after the first listen.
“Bathroom Floor” is so simple that it’s crazy that it works, and just goes to show the range of creation an artist like Sueco can bring to the table in what is becoming an overrun genre of the same old shit. In a genre of copy and paste, be more like this song.
Bringing the Cybertruck around with another banger, “Anastasia” is a perfect blend of pop-punk and EDM ready to fuel the late nights with friends doing the most random, batshit things you can think of.
Sueco once again showcases his intricate songwriting skills, managing to keep, “Yeah she my lil dealer/When I need that superpowder” stuck in my head on an almost infinite loop while I continue to spiral into the crazy soundscape wall I’ve suddenly crashed into.
It’s almost as if EMO/pop-punk works perfectly with the EDM genre in an untapped potential kind of way, and I’m completely here for it. “Anastasia” is incredibly catchy, straight to the point, and I need more of it injected into my veins right away. I would not be surprised to see this one becoming a quick fan favorite among those in the know of Sueco and those still in the dark.
“All that I want/Is to feel like I’m living again,” and just like that every single bad emotion, repressed memory, and bad thought comes to the surface and I’m reminded of how numb I’ve become, just a husk moving along in the daylight wanting to feel the warmth once more.
“Wanna Feel Something” encapsulates so much emotion into a 3-minute song, creating a beautiful reality where we want to be happy, we want to feel purpose, but sometimes it’s just wishful thinking. Taking the typical piano keys we might all mess around with whenever a piano is present and transforming it into a complex mind-maze took me back as Sueco once more showcased his ability to genre-hop, not keeping himself tucked into a small box.
If this song tells listeners anything about Sueco’s music; It’s to never not expect surprises around every corner. From the vocal delivery to the fantastic wordplay that kept me hooked, once again coming back for more, “Wanna Feel Something,” is a special song that I’ll probably come back to time and time again.
Whenever I pick something to review, whether it be a single, EP, or an album, I always try to leave myself as vulnerable as possible to take in every emotion present, and “452AM” absolutely crushed me.
“You could stay or you could go/But if you stay I’m not opposed,” a simple plea but the baggage coming with the plea is unbearable and heartbreaking. “452AM” quickly became my favorite song off the album, which was hard considering how good the other songs are as well.
The stripped-back, heart exposure of “452AM” is both beautiful and tear-inducing. I loved the simplicity of the instrumentals themselves, as they hang close enough to Sueco’s broken vocals to create the perfect emotional rollercoaster my heart both needed and hated. This track is why an artist like Sueco is a top player in the modern EMO genre.
Olivia Rodrigo isn’t the only one with a bad idea as Sueco continues the use of Attempted Lover as his personal journal reading and us listeners, the devoted audience. “Bad Idea” keeps the trend of Sueco taking the EDM/hyper-pop world by storm, as he constantly genre-bends, creating a new musical reality where nothing is impossible. If you want to make it, there are no boundaries.
Though not my favorite song on the album, I would be lying if I said the song’s chorus, “It was a bad bad bad bad bad/Bad idea” wasn’t stuck in my head for a few hours. “Bad Idea” is an incredibly simplistic track but the earworm gains are larger than anything else on the album, which is crazy considering just how much of Attempted Lover has already been permanently tattooed on my brain.
In 2 minutes and 30 seconds, Sueco was able to execute a relatable theme and put it to an intriguing beat that kept me moving in my seat throughout each listen. There are a lot of artists who wish they had this ability that Sueco seems to have been born with. I don’t doubt listeners will have fun with this one, and just like me will in no time (legit during their first listen) be singing this damn simple chorus for a good while.
If it wasn’t for the emotional masterpiece that’s “452AM,” “Never Even Left” would be my top song from Sueco’s sophomore album. So, nestled quite nicely in its warm second place, “Never Even Left” fills my acoustic-loving heart with peace. Sueco sings, “I’ll think about you till I’m gone/I’m probably never moving on/I swear I’m always gonna have you in my head,” and it’s this string of lyrics that perfectly captures the essence of this stripped-back anthem.
There is quite literally nothing Sueco can’t do at this point, I’m half-expecting him to nail a Taylor Swift-esque isolated single sometime in the future, because why the heck not? He has already proven no genre can keep him locked up, and with songs like “Never Even Left” by his side, he’s certainly still moving up the hill like the little engine that could.
I fully expect “Never Even Left” to be a live fan favorite for the inevitable singalongs that will occur. Heck, I’m sure all of us EMOs out there are already itching to pick up our acoustic guitars and sing this one at the top of our lungs until we pass out. Sueco continues to shine at the simplistic nature of his songs, and this one just continues that trend.
Pulling from the dark reaches of his mind once more, “Mouthful Of Spiders” touches a little on the darkside, perfectly capturing raw emotions and intimacy as Sueco parades around singing, “Chemical romantic I’m addicted to the sex/Turn my heart black just to match my Amex.” Simply, the wordplay master in his realm.
The calm presence of “Mouthful Of Spiders” is a left exit turn from the rest of the hive-mind that’s Attempted Lover, but it’s this quick U-turn that grabbed my attention instantly as I found myself dissecting the core complexes of the track as if it was a university project. It’s a complex mess told beautifully, creating a great chill experience compared to the album’s other more mindplay gambles.
The perfect song for midnight riders, I suggest throwing this one on next time you plan on driving through the dark and see what you find at the end of that trip. The closed-off doors it could open. Funnily enough, it’s a pretty straightforward song but my imagination loves to get lost in the lyrics and sounds.
Turn it up to 11? Dude, the volume scroller is way beyond that at this point! Yet another one of the album’s featured singles, “Drama Queen” quickly became a fan favorite among the people I’ve talked with who have heard the song, citing Sueco’s raw vocal tone, and mind-melting guitar playing as the triggers for their fall into the Sueco sized rabbit hole.
“Drama Queen” is a blitz, a blur, and a complete mindfuck of all proportions. But, obviously in the best musical way possible. It’s the track’s aggressive grunge personality that won me over quite quickly. It’s a slow haze buildup but once Sueco gets to where he needs to be the song pops off and listeners will be singing, “I like it,” in no time.
When it comes to the three singles released before the release of Attempted Lover, “Mulholland Drive” quickly became my favorite. Once again featuring Sueco stripped back and vulnerable, singing, “Would you do the same, too?/I’d do that for you.” It was Sueco’s relatable, heartfelt openness that pulled me right in and kept me wanting more with each single’s release.
Now, with “Mulholland Drive” seated perfectly as the album’s closing piece, it’s still a masterpiece and bookends with “Wreck” all too well, ending things on a somber yet realistic note, not skipping over any emotions and continuing to be as real with listeners as an artist can be in today’s twisted world.
Though it has fallen as my top song, it’s still within reach of my top 5, and just as before, the tight-knit playing style Sueco sports throughout the song’s almost 3-minute runtime will continue to keep me entranced as I sing along into the void of my own emotionally compromised heart.
Sueco truly hit it out of the park with his independently released sophomore album, Attempted Lover. From the album’s first track build-up to the somber closer. Each experience in between was unique, real, and spoke to every emotion in my heart that cared to listen. I’m even more excited to continue following along the success story that is the genre-bender known as Sueco as he continues to masterfully navigate his way through the emotional world of music.
If you’re like me and are itching to hear some of these newer songs in the loving embrace of a live show mosh-pit, Sueco is currently gearing up for the North American leg of his Attempted Lover tour, which kicks off on September 13 in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Tickets are currently onsale, and if you haven’t yet I suggest picking up yours as soon as possible.
Our TOP 3 Tracks: “452AM,” “Wanna Feel Something,” “Anastasia”
Keep up with Sueco: Instagram | Threads | TikTok | X | Facebook
