Almost exactly five years ago, April Harper Grey of underscores declared who she wanted to be: "I'm a pop star, baby!" she boasted in "spoiled little brat", the catchy pop-punk smash from her 2021 debut album fishmonger. "spoiled little brat" is the only song from fishmonger that underscores played on their last tour as Danny Brown's support band. Was it because the song immediately became a crowd favorite? Or did underscores want to signal to their audience what they can expect from them in the future?

"U", underscores' third album, is Grey's no-frills attempt to achieve pop star status. The progressive, conceptual approach of "wallsocket" from 2023 is gone. "U" has all the ingredients of a classic pop album - a choreographically ambitious single, a power ballad, an anthem about the end of a break-up - without being boring. It's glossy and stylized, but it never forgoes the magnified, genre-bending and chaotic idiosyncrasies of her earlier work. The aim here is maximum impact in a pared-down format.