If you follow the YouTube scene, you’ll know the name Troye Sivan. Well, the Australian vlogger, and now musician, has finally released his brand new five-track EP Trxye. Trxye features five excellent new songs, three of which I would like to share and explore further with you. Opening track and lead single “Happy Little Pill” has a very strong club vibe to it, a very catchy melody, and great production. It has everything it needs to be a hit song, and it is very much that among Troye Sivan’s online fans, having gained over three and a half million listens on the official audio release, and almost eight hundred thousand views on the official video in as little as three days.
“Happy Little Pill”:
“Happy Little Pill” somehow manages to use an upbeat melody to simultaneously create a very relaxed sound. When listening to the track, it is almost sedate in its atmosphere during the verses. It sounds very composed and calm, yet at the same time has a somewhat exotic quality to it. Its use of electronic sound effects during the chorus is somewhat striking, yet they work incredibly well within the song, and make the chorus sound much livelier than the somewhat relaxed verses. The track provides its listeners with strong melodies throughout both verse and chorus, ensuring that it will be stuck in your head for hours, if not days, to come. I don’t know about other fans of Troye Sivan’s YouTube channel, but I certainly didn’t expect this kind of music from him. In fact, I didn’t know what to expect, but fans – myself included – seem very happy with the result.
“Gasoline” on the otherhand, starts off with just Troye’s vocals and a piano. Once again very relaxed, the song feels quite sedate in its approach, but about half a minute in, we are greeted with a very strong Pop/R&B tone, with the sound of rhythmically snapping fingers and the piano accompanying Troye’s voice. Personally, I would have been much happier with this track if Sivan stuck with the piano, but the R&B quality to it is not wholly unwelcome. During the chorus, the R&B quality of this track gets stronger. Indeed, this song is far more sombre than “Happy Little Pill”, but just as wonderful.
“Gasoline”:
The track does, however feature a quite bizarre instrumental break towards the end of the song, combining very ambient sounds with quite electronic ones. Nevertheless, this part does work quite well. Unfortunately, the track begins to drag ever so slightly after the second verse. The song is still enjoyable; it just feels like a marginally less exciting song than “Happy Little Pill”. Of course, the danger with slower songs is that your audience will lose interest unless it is done incredibly well, or if the audience you are pandering to enjoys slower, more serene music. I think this track is where the EP falls down a little, but it is, on the whole, a good addition and is worth listening to.
The EP closes with Troye’s “The Fault in Our Stars“, named after John Green’s best-selling romantic novel about two teenage cancer patients. This track moves away from the Pop/R&B sound of the last song, and provides its audience with a sombre track. If you have read The Fault in Our Stars, you will know that the sombre tone is quite appropriate given the content of the book. Despite its melancholy quality, the track itself is arguably the best on the EP. The melody is very catchy, the track is very simple and not over-complicated, and Troye’s vocals are nothing short of stunning. The track seems to crescendo throughout its duration, building up more and more until the final chorus is bursting with musical brilliance. This track is nothing short of amazing, and easily earns a full 5/5.
“The Fault In Our Stars”:
Overall, the EP makes for a very strong entry into the music industry, providing its listeners with a nice mix of exotic club/R&B tracks with a couple of more sombre tracks scattered between them. As a whole, the EP is wonderfully produced, and I am sure I will not be alone in saying that I would want much more of this kind of music from this artist in the future. As it stands, I would highly recommend Troye Sivan’s new EP Trxye. You can buy the record from iTunes here.
Words by Jay Sullivan // Edited by Ayo Adepoju
