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“Don’t you want a slice of me?” LOYD curls his tongue. The very last line of the title track to his new album, FRESH MEAT, whets the appetite. Across nine songs, the queer dance-pop artist gives all of himself with seductive, tantalizingly sweet melodies that stick to the roof of your mouth. They’re so gummy that you can’t possibly forget them. “Lethal Injection” gets down and dirty, lapping up a soft grind on the sweaty dance floor. “Chew you up and spit you out again,” he sings. He’s nothing if not aggressively mischievous, as you’ll also find with “Kill the Dream” and the lightning-struck “Ego Death.”
LOYD isn’t just about deviance in a dive bar. “Catch Me When I Fall,” one of his best, bobs and bubbles during a torrential emotional downpour. “One thing I know for sure is that the bubble’s got to burst / Burned the bridge and turned the page,” he slashes open his heart and lets the blood drip out. Later, he laments the dying out of a relationship/friendship, singing, “Your harsh words prove something after all / You won’t be there to catch me when I fall.” That thorny refrain pricks the skin, cutting so deeply that you can see inside his soul.
With the blindingly stunning “Thin Skin,” Loyd muses on wishes forgotten and wishes yet to come. “Once, you wished to join the 27 Club,” he admits through glassy synths. “As if that were something to aspire to / And still, the long road ahead at 32 / Feeling perpetually brand new.” The torch ballad features Loyd’s best vocal to date; he scorches the earth on which he treads. There’s no escaping the flames. In exposing the nerve endings of the queer human experience, the work emerges raw, visceral, and unapologetic. So much so, FRESH MEAT makes a bid for one of the best pop albums of 2026.
From the drain-circling “Normal Gays” to the existential “How Do I Hold onto This Dream?,” Loyd’s latest offering bottles up growing anxieties over the world and one’s place within it. “Sometimes when I’m alone, I think about what could have been, and should I just keep going?” he ponders in the latter. He questions his work as an independent musician and whether there’s really any room left for him. And the answer? Unequivocally yes. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have FRESH MEAT worming its way up the mid-year report (more on that soon!)
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