MICHELLE – AFTER DINNER WE TALK DREAMS | Album Review
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I understand the temptation to roll your eyes when any piece of art– a book, a film, an album –is described as “a love letter to New York.” I myself am hesitant to burden a body of work as exciting and multifaceted as MICHELLE’s with such an overused cliche. To do so would overlook all of the little idiosyncrasies that set this band apart from the many run-of-the-mill bedroom pop acts currently plaguing algorithmic ‘Good Vibes’ playlists the world over. My first encounter with the 6-piece collective was in 2019 when I had the privilege of seeing them play at my college’s annual spring music festival. Following that intimate yet enchanting live performance, the group’s self-released 2018 debut, HEATWAVE, became my go-to summer soundtrack. In HEATWAVE’s tight 30 minutes, MICHELLE express their love for their native New York City through quirky references to “[eat]ing the East River” and Animorphing into subway rats in a citywide “rat-volution.” Even its more conventional analogies– “STUCK ON U” casts the city as an unreliable yet addictive love interest who runs hot and cold –are imbued with the specific love-hate pendulum that comes with growing up in fun hell.
Fast forward almost four years from HEATWAVE, an album born of home sessions during one sweltering summer: MICHELLE are signed to Atlantic Records and are currently opening for Mitski on her North American tour. On their sophomore LP AFTER DINNER WE TALK DREAMS, their sound is bigger, more elaborate, and more polished, but their collaborative DIY spirit is as bold as ever. While their first album was made up mostly of pieced-together contributions from each of the group’s individual members– Emma, Jamee, Charlie, Layla, Sofia, and Julian –MICHELLE’S latest release sees them meshing together into what feels like less of a loose collective and more of a solidified band. Their star power was apparent on HEATWAVE, but now they’ve got the resources and exposure to go full popstar mode– all while maintaining the integrity and creativity that made their first project so compelling. Standout diva moment “POSE” is one of many shining examples. The music video for this single has MICHELLE members hitting their titular poses all over the New York City subway system and telling an ex, “don’t you dare come and dance with me!” Like many of the tracks on ADWTD, “POSE” is a celebration of oneself, of being happy to dance on your own.
The LP opens with “MESS U MADE,” a slow breakup ballad that acknowledges feelings of pain and loneliness but prioritizes self-care above empty companionship: “home is a circus/I’m done feeling worthless.” This emotional maturity is not without its humility and humor– in the second verse, Emma Lee’s serene, airy lilt turns into a shriek as she admits, “last summer vacation/I was a bitch!” Layla Ku carries the soulful Songs In A Minor-era Alicia Keys-esque melody of the song’s hook, her bandmates backing her up with soft, bluesy harmonies.
Themes of being content with solitude are present throughout the LP. As the listener, you get the sense that it’s a self-knowledge understood on an even deeper level when it's being sung about by a group of people whose camaraderie and teamwork is so apparent in their music. Take, for example, “TALKING TO MYSELF,” a bright, bouncy track about exploring one’s inner world. Sonically, it calls to mind the likes of both Sheryl Crow and Remi Wolf– the latter seems like an especially apt comparison once you reach the outro, which consists of the members spitting goofy gibberish muppet noises over a steady snare beat. “NO SIGNAL” serves as a sequel to HEATWAVE opener “GET OFF UR PHONE.” Both songs feature guest vocals from founding (now former) MICHELLE member Isa Reyes and extoll the joys of logging off. The track’s snappy, infectious hook– “no signal, phone down, off the grid/you know I care about you, but I need a minute” –has been stuck in my head since I first heard it. Its mellow acoustic guitar and sparkling keys perfectly complement MICHELLE’S seamless harmonies. On a “LAYLA IN THE ROCKET,” our titular heroine becomes “one with the cosmos,” blasting off in her own personal spaceship. MICHELLE’s Y2K girl group throwback stylings on this tune make it easy to imagine them singing it in a retro-futuristic space station.
“50/50” is another track that wears its late 90s/early 00s inspiration on its sleeve, but never in a way that feels derivative. It’s a DIY-infused homage to iconic girl groups like Destiny’s Child and TLC that succeeds in doing these influences justice, delivering some of the album's catchiest pop hooks, smoothest R&B harmonies, and most emotionally resonant lyrics. It’s yet another song that sees its narrator recognizing her own needs and choosing them over a withholding, self-centered partner.
Of course, the album’s thematic throughlines don’t always center on solitude– some are far more concerned with the exact opposite. Lead single “SYNCOPATE” is catchy as hell and rife with innuendo, choosing to hide its sexually-charged themes in plain sight, meanwhile “END OF THE WORLD” takes these to even more audacious extremes. Not only does the latter lean all the way into its turn-of-the-millennium pop influence, but its lyrics show MICHELLE being more forward than ever about their desires. The song takes place on the eve of the alleged Y2K apocalypse, and MICHELLE intend to, well, go out with a bang:
City’s crumbling, but I don’t mind
I think you’re hotter than the burning sky
Channel surfing at the end of days
Quick enough to death at the digital age
Y2K, fuck me like the end of the world!
The delightfully raunchy track’s punchline comes in its outro– spoiler alert: the world doesn’t end. Among overlapping chatter and a muted countdown, an exasperated voice can be heard shouting, “are you fucking kidding me?”
Generally speaking, the songs skew softer and more introspective towards the back end of the LP, though this isn’t to say that they lose steam. “SPACED OUT, PHASED OUT” is a sweet, head-in-the-clouds tune whose dreamy harmonies float over hi-hat taps and moody guitar licks. On “HAZARDS”– a slow-burner reminiscent of the more R&B-tinged tracks on Billie Eilish’s Happier Than Ever –MICHELLE put a deceitful lover in their place with badass bars like “oh baby, you might be in danger/of ending up a stranger/that I could arrange.” “FIRE ESCAPE” perfectly evokes the feeling of watching the city streets on those summer nights when it’s too hot to sleep. If there’s one constant about MICHELLE, it’s their uncanny ability to encapsulate summer in New York. Four years ago, they closed out their debut album by lovingly musing that, especially in the warmer months, the city “smells like trash and piss/but I know that’s never gonna change.” Anyone who’s been rained on by an air conditioner or had a pack of rats run across their path will tell you: New York in the summer is gross. But it’s also kind of magical, at least for those of us who aren’t too cynical to see the golden hour glow through the unbearable humidity.
On ADWTD, MICHELLE continue their trend of closing their albums with odes to New York, this time namechecking Citi Bikes and the Halsey Street subway stop. “MY FRIENDS” is a love song to their hometown and to each other:
They look like Brooklyn, that’s where I found them
Twenty-four-hour linoleum and no ID, forty ounces
We’re mean to these streets and what you mean to me
We’re raising hell, fuck a polite, we bump tunes and playfight til Halsey
MICHELLE are New Yorkers, through and through. They express their love for the city that raised them, but don’t reveal all their secrets. “Where we go I’ll never tell them/They’ll just go and build a hotel there,” one of the members sings, with a desperate desire to protect what’s left of Real New York from further gentrification. It’s a bittersweet sting I feel each time I walk through one of the neighborhoods I grew up in and realize that half the places I used to go to are gone or unrecognizable.
I discovered MICHELLE while I was away at college and feeling terribly homesick for the city, and the following summer I let their songs welcome me back home. Now, I’ve been back in Brooklyn for the past two years, but I am getting ready to move to another state in just a few months. It’s been a long, harsh winter here, and coincidentally, the release of ADWTD fell on a weekend where the weather in New York felt like spring for the first time. My first listen soundtracked a walk I’ve been taking for over a decade. As I made my way through Gowanus– once populated by heavily-graffitied old warehouses and hidden gems like the Batcave, not a Whole Foods in sight –it began to sink in that soon I wouldn’t live here anymore and that there was no telling what I’d come back to. But like the members of MICHELLE, I know what will stay with me wherever I go:
Choked up when we’re apart, you’re what I need to breathe
Too much history ‘cause we have been through everything
I’ve been runnin’ through the grid
But every single path I’ll cross with you
I might roam, but baby, I can’t stray that far from you
It’s in my sneakers
The bass that shakes my speakers
My little slice of heaven
Extension three-four-seven
Grace Robins-Somerville is a writer from Brooklyn, New York. You can find her on Instagram and Twitter @grace_roso.
