LØLØ’s debut album is a burst of infectious pop-rock that hits hard when it needs to and also isn’t afraid to get delicate and quiet. Falling for Robots and Wishing I Was One is a fun but fraught musical journey. The main emotional beat of the record, “My relationship with a bad boy went south and now I have regrets”, is a rich vein of storytelling. LØLØ, however, comes close to leaning on that emotional beat too much here.
Falling for Robots and Wishing I Was One opens with “Intro”, an intimate track with LØLØ’s voice front and center, singing just above a whisper, while subtle organ chords shift slowly in the background. The lyrics start with, “I’m exhausted / Feels like my heart’s getting rotten”, which is essentially the album’s thesis. That segues right into “OMG”, as an acoustic guitar fades in and the organ fades out. After a few seconds, a quiet bass guitar joins in as LØLØ sings, steadily building the volume until the 30-second mark, when the chorus smashes in with crunching guitars and pounding drums. That is delightfully unexpected and immediately explains why LØLØ is on the punk-oriented Hopeless Records. “OMG” effectively switches between the soft verses and the crashing chorus, an effective use of contrast she doesn’t really try to duplicate elsewhere on the record.
The upbeat rocker “Faceplant” follows, as LØLØ describes a new obsession with, “I didn’t just fall, I / Faceplanted onto the floor.” It’s a joyful song about fresh love, one of the few joyful moments on the record from here on out. Musically, Falling for Robots and Wishing I Was One stays generally upbeat, with catchy melodies and tender moments. Lyrically, though, there’s a hell of a lot of recrimination the rest of the way.
“2 of Us” is another big rocker with crunchy guitars, distorted synths, and huge vocals. LØLØ tells the story about her ex-boyfriend drunkenly calling her seven times in one night and going on to flagellate herself for still picking up the phone every time. “U Turn Me On (But You Give Me Depression)” mines the same territory. It opens with LØLØ declaring, “I wish I fell for an axe murderer / Instead of you / He’d kill me too / But at least he’d make it quick.” The track continues with melodic guitars, big synth hooks, and lyrics about enough pent-up aggression to put a hole through the wall.
That continues with “Poser”, “I Would Fix You if I Could”, and “U & the Tin Man”. Falling for Robots isn’t explicitly a concept album, so it’s hard to tell if all of these songs are about a single bad relationship or if LØLØ had several similar experiences. The fact that roughly half of the tracks are slight variations on the same idea reinforces that she had some issues to work through via songwriting.
“Poser” is a power ballad with the lyrical premise, “You never loved me, you fucking poser.” Slightly distorted guitars, laid-back drums, and carefully placed backing vocals make the song a surprisingly effective example of the genre. “I Would Fix You if I Could” is an acoustic ballad focusing on lingering sadness, as LØLØ laments, “I tried to make a bad boy good.” “U & the Tin Man” closes out the record with a song filled with unfavorable comparisons between the ex and the character from The Wizard of Oz. This track also ends up being the concept for the album’s cover art, a pastiche with LØLØ as Dorothy holding a human heart above a collapsed robot on a yellow brick road.
LØLØ’s gift for melody and interest in stylistic variety keeps Falling for Robots and Wishing I Was One from completely wallowing in its subject matter. There are also some lyrical curves elsewhere that are, if not removed from the main topic, then sufficiently adjacent to feel different. “Gloria” is a folk song with a great melody and vocal performance. It’s couched as an apology to the second woman her ex-boyfriend was dating simultaneously. She keeps the music low-key throughout, only gradually filling out the arrangement as the song nears its end.
“Hot Girls in Hell” starts in a quiet, confessional place but quickly becomes a big rocker when it hits the first pre-chorus. The soaring declaration, “I hope there’s no hot girls in hell,” serves as the chorus, which is a unique variation on the I Hate You Now and Hope You Die song. On the other hand, “Thoughts From the Shower” is exactly what it says with just LØLØ, an acoustic guitar, some subtle shower dripping sounds, and the temporary joy of escaping life in a nice, hot shower.
The similarly acoustic “Snow in Berlin“, is a much more tender take on the relationship. Instead of faceplanting into love like earlier, this track includes the line, “My heart did a kickflip when you leaned in,” which is a great 21st-century variation on that experience. The refrain, “Ooooo, I was rooting for you,” is essentially the inverse of the prevailing sentiment of the record. LØLØ sings about the good times, acknowledges the problems, and admits that she’s rooting for him, even at the song’s end.
“Wish I was a Robot”, the de facto title track, turns the focus on LØLØ herself. She fantasizes about escaping her emotions and needing a mechanic to fix any problem. Appropriately, the song turns up the synths and digital fuzz to go full synth-rock. The song is a good illustration of the album’s genre agnosticism. It’s not tied to one type of music, and LØLØ is willing to go as soft or hard as the song requires. Despite the lyrical beats getting a little worn out, her anything-goes approach keeps Falling for Robots and Wishing I Was One engaging throughout.