Compare & Despair

New Yorker Nick Llobet’s 2020 debut album as youbet is a wonderful introduction to a singular songwriting voice. True, there are antecedents within Compare & Despair’s woozy dream pop, with Llobet at times recalling a more away-with-the-fairies Mac De Marco, or less hyperactive Ezra Furman, but the world Llobet creates here is theirs alone. Outwardly childlike and naïve, these gauzy, tape-warped songs have a deep sense of unease lurking beneath the surface as they bend and distort like a toddler lost in a house of mirrors. Crucially though, Llobet navigates the trauma with humour and a winning melodic sweetness.