Much like their ubiquitous self-titled theme song that subtly evolves with each album, the 1975 are a band of the moment, synthetic pop mavericks unburdened by any parochial genre constraints and able to drape themselves in an array of digital musical skins. It might be more easily dismissed as a savvy commercialism if the band wasn't so passionately committed to the process. Healy, who battled his own demons during the album's gestation, including entering rehab for heroin addiction, seems to be a man both at odds and in tune with his age. The album vibrates with tweetable immediacy, packing in a reference to the death of rapper Lil Peep next to heartfelt condemnations of immigrant bashing and timely references to the Me Too movement -- and that's all just in "Love It If We Made It," a buoyantly earnest anthem that works as their own Internet-era version of Van Hagar's "Right Now," Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire," and Phil Collins' "Another Day in Paradise." Healy would love it if society survived to the next millennium, but as he sings on the song's chorus, "modernity has failed us." Much like the Internet itself, A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships works best in small doses, when you can catch any one song on its own terms. And despite the often bleak themes at play on the album, there's also a refreshing hopefulness on many of the tracks that speaks to Healy's own recovery and willingness to say yes to even the most frothy pop trend. However, taken as a whole, the album is often as disparate and difficult to wade through as the social-media landscape it hopes to comment on.
- Matt Collar - allmusic.com
