On Jan 16, The 1975 released a fourth single from their upcoming album Notes on a Conditional Form. I didn’t have high expectations for “Me & You Together Song”, because the other singles were a disappointment, but I was pleasantly surprised. Other songs from the album have sounded like a robot having a screaming contest, or have been so political that you forget to just jam out and have fun listening to the song, but “Me & You” was refreshing, with a more acoustic, calmer tone. With that being said though, that doesn’t mean that the single was great.

As much as I hate to say it, I haven’t been as excited to listen to The 1975’s newest singles. They may be one of my favorite bands, but their dramatic shift in style from their third album to now has made me prepare for how bad the newest song is going to be instead of how exciting I want it to be. Will I still stay up till midnight for the album and hopefully see them live? Yes. But will these new singles-so far-have the same vibes that made me love the band in the first place? So far, I have to disagree.

One reason why I didn’t love “Me & You Together Song” as much was because of the balance between vocals and instrumental. The lyrics were simple and didn’t take much thinking in comparison to other songs, which was nice. It’s always cool to find the metaphors in their songs, but surprisingly it was refreshing to hear something that was straightforward.

On a more positive note, something I did like about the song was that it reminded me of their previous albums. Not only did it have a beat you could roll your windows down and sing to, it sounded straight out of the opening sequence from an early 2000’s movie.

At the same time, it was hard to hear a lot of the lyrics. Matty Healy’s voice was drowned out by the background, which shouldn’t have been as loud, considering that this was a mellow song and not a rock anthem. If The 1975 had adjusted the background a bit more, so that it didn’t compete with the lyrics, this song would’ve been a lot better.

I’m not going to say that I was disappointed by this song though, because I did like it. Unlike some of the other singles from their new album, I actually listened to it more than once. It definitely exceeded expectations, but that’s not saying much because my expectations were low. I now have a bit more hope for NOACF, but after releasing three albums of jams, the band has a lot to live up to.