“Reply ASAP” is a big song, but not big in the more obvious and clichéd way that many rock songs are. This isn’t about the instant suckerpunch or the obvious use of musical weight and weapons. No, it is a more supple and subtle route to such sonic heights that is being explored.
It may start in spacious, synth-polished lowlands, but once it commits itself to that big, stadium sound, it goes for it, and not through the usual roaring guitars but more from a broadening of sounds, an increase in textures and layers across the board. Synths shimmer, keys cascade, and drums pound and power through.
And Lessons in Crime then ebb and flow between these two worlds creating a wonderful, constantly rising, always evolving, building dynamic, a sound that incrimentally moves ever upwards, doing so in such an effortless way that it is often only in hindsight, only when you look back and see how far you have come from those minimalist first notes, that just how brilliant this song is, indeed, this band is.
And then they throw in their master strokes. A sax solo that puts you in mind of the likes of Roxy Music and a couple of sudden breaks that sound like the recording has dropped out, before resetting and charging on ever higher.
This song works as a formal apology—an open letter to the people we have loved but also neglected, time and again, in those moments when being a functional human slipped out of reach. And it is that balance between raw honesty and poised, polished pop-rock that is the brilliant contradiction at the song’s heart.
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