She may have done her time on the Disney Channel, but that’s as close as 26-year-old Angeleno Hayley Kiyoko likes to hew to the standard pop backstory. Her airy, LA-dreamy debut album sounds sparklingly refreshing, with none of the usual suspects in its production credits, and Kiyoko’s own songwriting voice – frank, fun, fearlessly tussling with her emotions – floods through. Feelings sets out her open-hearted manifesto (“sorry that I care… sick and tired of acting all tough”) over fat bassline and light beats, her voice sweet and unshowy, but there’s more than just summer crush material here(though Palm Dreams takes a G-funky shot at joining the ranks of west coast-representin’ sunshine jams).
Any album that starts with an “overture” has more than average ambitions, and beyond the spry, fast-talking R&B confections of Curious and He’ll Never Love You and the adorable What I Need (with Kehlani) – feather-light in construction but deadly in their hooks – are songs of affecting subtlety, like the startling night-terror atmospherics of Mercy/Gatekeeper, in which a sleepless Kiyoko longs to “bang my head until I start to fly”.
Pretty far from standard filler, but just as Kiyoko found greater success when she started being open about her sexuality in her lyrics, staying true to idiosyncratic instinct has made Expectations feel more universal than a generic, play-it-safe debut. It might not be what you were expecting, but it’s just what your pop playlist needs.
