GENRE; Rock
LABEL; Domino
REVIEWED; 16 November, 2025
RATING; 7.5
London outfit Sorry make a daring leap on their third album, COSPLAY, trading irony for earnestness in a hall-of-mirrors exploration of identity and nostalgia. Across 11 tracks, Asha Lorenz and Louis O’Bryen lead the group into disquieting sonic terrain, fusing industrial noise, gothic textures, pop sampling, and folk in equal measure.
From the opening “Echoes,” with its deceptively dreamy arpeggios that rupture into distortion, to the closing track “Jive,” which evolves through R&B, electro-clash, and even a marching-band roar, the album is shapeshifting and unafraid. Songs like “Jetplane” repurpose a Guided by Voices hook into frenetic, breakbeat-driven madness, while “Waxwing” warps Toni Basil’s iconic “Mickey” cheer into a dark, sensual psychodrama.
One of the album’s greatest strengths lies in its human flaws: Lorenz’s voice, fragile and raspy, cracks and recovers; tracks like “Magic” begin with false starts; “Today Might Be the Hit” sees the band flirting with chaos and melody in equal measure. This unpredictability mirrors the conceptual core: in a world full of borrowed symbols, how do we know who we really are?
Critics argue that sometimes the lyrical references land too loosely (a mention of Yukio Mishima, for instance, feels tossed-off), but even when the album risks flattening into abstraction, a sudden clash of guitar or percussive surprise drags you back in.
The centerpiece, though, is “Jive.” As the album’s emotional crescendo, it feels more than just collage — it’s a sincere, evolving mantra: “I wanna jive tonight.” That moment, where experimentalism meets longing, suggests that despite all the masks, Sorry may finally be stepping into something genuine.
