The major-label full-length debut from California's
Oliver Tree, 2020's
Ugly Is Beautiful proves another showcase for the ironic bowl-cut and JNCO jean-wearing singer's bombastically hooky brand of pop. The album arrives on the heels of several buzzed-about EPs and
Ugly Is Beautiful builds nicely upon those albums, juxtaposing catchy, '90s-style pop arrangements with vocals that seem at once cheeky and sincere. Mixing blown-out keyboards with distorted guitars, heavy basslines, and pounding beats,
Tree has crafted a distinctively zoomer aesthetic, mixing a hot stew of influences from
Nirvana and
the Strokes to
Eminem,
Pixies, and sundry SoundCloud rap touchstones. It's a style that remains remarkably consistent even as he shifts gears, from the driving post-punk of "Me Myself & I" and the
Beck-esque acoustic grunge of "Cash Machine" to the moody, synth-heavy club jam "1993." As
Tree sings on "Alien Boy," "I fell down to Earth from a hundred miles away/And somehow I still make it work." ~ Matt Collar