The pop-rock singer-songwriter’s fifth original studio album feels more like a confusing déjà vu than a confident step into a new era.
This is not an easy review to write.
Since his debut album, 2018’s Walk The Talk, Pamungkas has consistently and resolutely positioned himself as a trailblazer. The singer-songwriter’s combination of unvarnished charm and unapologetic vision was a much-needed breath of fresh air back in the late 2010s and the early 2020s — a period of time when most male artists were too focused on being a clean-cut, prefabricated boy next door. The enormous success of Walk The Talk, as well as his sophomore album, 2019’s Flying Solo, became a prime example of the best that the Indonesian independent music scene had to offer. Simply put: Pamungkas made the word “indie” cool again. And, regardless of a few controversies that popped up every now and then throughout his career so far, no one could ever question his creative bravado.
Sadly, that bravado is (almost) nowhere to be found in Pamungkas’ fifth original studio album, Hardcore Romance, released on the 21st of August, 2024.
Regardless of whether anyone is willing to acknowledge this or not, history has proven how being a thirtysomething is more of a challenge than an opportunity for an artist. It is usually the chapter of life in which an artist starts running out of ideas and needs to work harder — physically, mentally, and even emotionally — to continue getting in touch with their creative soul. Pamungkas, now 31 years of age, still deserves praise for having enough energy to churn out another full-length album. Perhaps he discovered his energy to make Hardcore Romance by looking back at the spirit of his early oeuvre — and it shows quite palpably too.
In terms of lyrical approach and melodic variations, the songs encompassing Hardcore Romance pretty much echo the ones in both Walk The Talk and Flying Solo. While the 2021’s Solipsism 0.2 and the 2022’s Birdy were more creatively challenging as well as thought-provoking, Hardcore Romance, just like Walk The Talk and Flying Solo, is simpler, emotive, and more youthful in spirit.
But here’s the problem: Pamungkas is not that twentysomething artist anymore.
As I wrote before: Hardcore Romance is simpler, emotive, and more youthful in spirit than his prior records — but it also feels awkward and forced. Considering his experience as a pro, Pamungkas is (supposed to be) wise enough *not* to come up with something as basic as “One Bad Day”. The album’s opening number, which sounds more like a brash cousin of Daniel Powter’s “Bad Day”, does not at all reflect Pamungkas’ growth as an artist. Lines such as “Take me out/Take me to somewhere/Closer to you” sound more like something that a rookie would come up with as opposed to someone who has been a professional musician for almost seven years now. The album’s third number, “New Feeling”, is another poor example of his shockingly weak songwriting. Pamungkas is usually a witty songwriter, but describing love as “such a nice feeling” is so far from being clever that it comes across as an underwhelming cop-out instead.
From the narrative and linguistic perspectives, Hardcore Romance is much easier to understand and much more accessible to mainstream audiences than Birdy — but what’s the point of being understandable if it means sacrificing its artistic depth? Despite the tepid streaming numbers of Birdy, that particular album continues to stand out to this day thanks to Pamungkas’ clever examination of what it feels like to be on the delicate crossroad between emotionally charged young adulthood and the soul-stirring, permanent adulthood. Mainstream audiences might have not been able to completely appreciate Birdy, but at least it was a very interesting record to dive into. With Hardcore Romance, it seems like Pamungkas has deliberately avoided offering complexity as well as multi-dimensionality. Hardcore Romance, as a result, is the polar opposite of Birdy: it is not an interesting record.
To be fair, Pamungkas has tried to make Hardcore Romance somewhat interesting, though the outcome does not make much difference. Music production-wise, Hardcore Romance channels the gritty, rock-‘n-roll warrior within the artist. “I Love About You” is a rare opportunity for him to showcase his skills in the slacker rock subgenre, resulting in a very polished music production. Unfortunately, not even such production quality can redeem the song’s superficial nuance. (Although, in hindsight, I don’t think there is any music producer out there who could imbue soul to sentences like “We’re kissin’ each other’s face/And you see me/I see you/I thought it was cool.”)
Hardcore Romance, however, reaches its peak clumsiness with “Putus”. Even though it may seem exciting to see Pamungkas co-writing with someone else, this mid-tempo number, ultimately, ranks as one of Pamungkas’ weakest songs of his entire career. Almost all of the elements within the song, from start to finish, are loaded with the familiar vibe of Dewa 19 to the point where “Putus” sounds more like a proposed demo track for the legendary band as opposed to being Pamungkas’ original piece. In addition, even the most hardcore romantics out there would agree that lines such as “Yang bukan bibirmu/Yang bukan bola matamu/Yang selain dirimu/Putus” are just too bizarre to listen to — let alone, to sing along to.
These glaring issues, I believe, could easily be resolved if only Pamungkas had been willing to cover all the bases. His growth as a music producer has taken one step forward, but his growth as a songwriter, as evident in Hardcore Romance, has fallen three steps behind. Meanwhile, his growth as a singer has taken a worrying direction as well. His experimentation with adding raspiness to his vocal textures in Hardcore Romance is pretty much notable, especially in “Wanna Be Yours” and “Fight Some More”, but this, ultimately, adds nothing to the songs’ emotional richness. To begin with, Pamungkas is not exactly the most versatile singer, which means having him sing in a manner that is unnatural to his default mode ends up making his voice sound sickly as opposed to swaggy. This could cause actual, physical damage to his vocal cords if Pamungkas were not careful.
Ultimately, it is difficult to figure out what actually went on in Pamungkas’ mind when he worked on Hardcore Romantics. He does not put enough effort into the elements that are the most vital, but he tries too much in certain aspects that should not require any thought at all. Reading the press release of the album, he might genuinely wish to return to the so-called ‘zero’ point. Ironically, at this point in his career as well as his life, Pamungkas should be experienced enough to understand that trailblazing talent means nothing without good judgment.
Photos courtesy of Maspam Company.