Polish vocalist/songwriter
Adam Byczkowski's work under the
Better Person moniker began with 2016's
It's Only You EP, a brief collection of smoky, slightly lo-fi synth pop that dripped with late-night loneliness. At that point,
Byczkowski was sometimes living in Berlin, sometimes playing guitar in like-minded Montreal crooner
Sean Nicholas Savage's band, and traveling constantly on international tours. The glassy-eyed sentiments of
It's Only You reflected that ungrounded lifestyle, and its songs all held different shades of the same tired, searching energy. Four years later, debut full-length album
Something to Lose sheds much of the nocturnal haze of
It's Only You, trading the EP's funky synth bass lines and exhausted perspectives for bright, dreamlike atmospheres. Production from
MGMT's
Ben Goldwasser provides a significant upgrade from the dingy veneer of
Better Person's earlier tracks. Like those earlier songs,
Something to Lose builds on the influence of '80s synth pop and wistful sophisti-pop acts like
Sade and
the Blue Nile, but the melodies and presentation are more hopeful, more romantic, and more playful. Songs like "Hearts on Fire" and "Close to You" are catchy and upbeat, incorporating snaking drum machine programming, layers of fragile synths, and distant, quivering vocals. The bouncy key change and slippery lead guitars of the title track and the unexpected saxophone solo of "Hearts on Fire" nudge the album's sound a few subtle degrees closer to yacht rock. Some songs are sung entirely in Polish, including ethereal album standout "Dotknij Mnie."
Byczkowski constructs his tracks so uniformly, however, that these dips into his first language don't shift the emotional flow of the album much. If
Better Person's work before this evoked scenes of after-hours clubs and blurry cab rides home after long nights of partying,
Something to Lose is more like a thoughtful early-morning walk through empty city streets. The glistening production and yearning performances don't change too much from song to song, but converge into an album-length mood of reflective bittersweetness.