Review: Laser the Boy makes a splash with solo debut EP, ‘Overreacting’

Something special happens when a songwriter allows themselves to be honest and vulnerable. With a jangly pop sound, and a beguilingly hypnotic voice to boot, Laser the Boy crashes through the wall with his solo debut EP. Once frontman of the Doubleclicks, who trotted their particular brand of indie spirit all over the globe, Laser takes up space (and then some) with Overreacting. Six songs bang through the static with an earnestness that’s nothing short of addicting, awash in a DIY veneer and the faint tick of a reverberating heartbeat. “Dads don’t let your daughters grow up to be fucking married,” Laser seethes with opener “A Hill to Die On.” His words sting like acid, burning through songwriting pages with abandon.

Such is the way of Overreacting. It’s equal parts venomous and flirtatious, teetering between volatile, heart-weary indie-rock and confessionally-etched odes to adoration and romance. He perceives the world a certain way, always through a give-no-fucks filter, even when he’s wooing a lover. “It’s the way that you look at me / And the way that you let me look at you,” sings Laser with “The Way You Look at Me,” his voice as light as a feather. Even as airy as his tone is, there’s always a weight to it, as you’ll hear on standouts “Lucky Me” and “Don’t You Know Who I Am?” — oscillating between jagged and smooth. Laser needles his lyrics with such vocal panache that his words are heightened, electric, intense.

“If we are killers, why do we still shop at the store?” fumes Laser on an indictment of society, the closer “Overthrow Your Monsters.” Here, his performance is the most furious, a call to action despite the very normal, albeit decaying, state of the world. His words grow angrier: “I am breaking into rooms now / What a meditative place, all sick and round / Filled with a deafening lack of sound of the all the fucks they give about us.”

Overreacting never plays it safe. It’s ferocious and intimate in the same breath. It not only gives Laser room to musically dance around, as well as take a few incisive bites into the psyche, but invites the listener to engage and confront those same parts of themselves. When you’re not grooving along to a slimy, wall-to-wall guitar line, you’re dropped to your knees in the fetal position. There is no in-between. And therein lies the magic of Laser the Boy. He begs you to move and be moved — and there’s no way you won’t be with Overreacting. This is only the beginning.

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