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The Hellp’s new album, “Riviera,” marks a striking shift for the duo — composed of Noah Dillon and Chandler Lucy — pushing them into deeper, more introspective territory than ever before. With their first release in 2016, The Hellp has built a sonic identity that has long been defined by gritty textures, feverish energy, and an aesthetic that once sat firmly in the “indie-sleaze” revival. Their earlier album releases — like the electro-punk “LL” — thrived on sharp edges, heavy distortion, and cinematic recklessness. “Riviera,” however, feels like the product of the duo growing out of their own mythology, choosing to interrogate the very landscape that shaped them: Los Angeles.
This evolution was clear even before the album dropped, when the band pre-released singles “Country Road,” “Doppler,” and “Here I Am,” hinting at a new tonal direction. “Country Road” introduced a moodier, sleeker version of The Hellp, stripping away the more abrasive stylings of their past hits. “Doppler” leaned into nostalgia, guided by soft synths and a wistful melodic undercurrent. “Here I Am” most clearly outlined the band’s reinvention — slower, weightier, and emotionally raw — the track that marked the slowest BPM of their discography and signaled that “Riviera” would be less about chaos and more about confession.
In contrast to the frenetic collage of “LL” released in 2024 and “Vol. 1” released in 2021, “Riviera” is cohesive and patient, with more cinema than disorder. The Hellp abandons the rapid-fire experimentation of their earlier years for a slower-burning and thematically unified album. The production is sleeker, cleaner, and more deliberate, and the emotional stakes feel more grounded. Instead of leaning on nostalgia and indie-sleaze grit like before, the band turns inward, exploring uncertainty, heartbreak, and the quiet unraveling of idealized futures — it is a mature, carefully sculpted record.
Several tracks stand out for how The Hellp shapes the emotional arc of “Riviera.” The track “Pray to Evil” opens with a sharper, more abrasive pulse than most of the album, channeling a kind of internal turmoil that feels both restless and hypnotic. It is one of the few moments where traces of their earlier, chaotic energy resurface — now distilled into something more focused and unsettling. “Cortt,” on the other hand, is far more intimate, almost tender in its vulnerability. Its muted produced and drifting vocals make it feel like a late-night confession, a song that hovers between clarity and confusion.
“Here I Am,” the emotional centerpiece of the album, slows the pace into a heavier and more deliberate mood; its subdued electronica underscores lyrics that gesture directly toward the sprawl of Los Angeles — referencing the city’s empty streets, sun-bleached afternoons, and the feeling of hovering on the edge of both promises and dangers. Rather than romanticizing the city, the song frames it as a place where the self can dissolve: a backdrop that amplifies loneliness even as it tempts with possibility.
The final and 10th track of the album, “Live Forever,” features looping synths and a fragile, suspended melody that gives the sense of time stretching and dissolving. Instead of offering resolution, “Live Forever” amplifies the album’s themes of impermanence and longing, closing the record with a gentle desire to hold on to something that cannot last.
What ultimately makes “Riviera” compelling is not any single track, but the way every song fits into a carefully constructed whole. Each piece blends seamlessly into the next, building an atmosphere that feels both dreamy and unsettling. The album is more understated than The Hellp’s previous works, but it is also more cohesive — it is a fully realized statement rather than a collection of experiments. In embracing a slower pace and more introspective voice, The Hellp has created their most mature and emotionally resonant album yet. “Riviera” flows with intention, each song reinforcing the album’s themes of longing, disillusionment, and the fragile hope that still flickers beneath it all.
