Recommended Tracks: “Way Down,” “Truce,” “Limbo”
Artists You Might Like: Braden Bales, Stephen Dawes, David Alexander
Sometimes there are four phases you go through in a relationship — an often push-and-pull that tethers you to someone. Adrian Lyles confronts those phases: the infatuation, the misunderstanding, the reconnection and the end on his debut EP, Horizons: Dawn. The 20-year-old singer, pulling on Dominic Fike, Mac Miller and other rap influences, faces the fact that even after pain and heartache, there’s a possibility of light and dreams. For Lyles, the EP lives in the moments before dawn, where pain is real and honest, but it’s the light that remains shining through.
The EP opens with the dynamic track “Way Down,” which begins with Lyles facing the pain of not being accepted for who he is. Infatuation is the first part here, where we see him in a moment when he dares to show his true self. It’s a powerful, indie-pop track that showcases Lyles’s vocals, capturing the brutal sting of ridicule and how he’s trying to fake confidence while being hopelessly love-struck. Painting a picture of insecurity, he sings, “I think you’re over my head and I’m way down.”
Lyles has described Horizons as being “about the choices we make and where they take us. It starts with love.” Lyles confronts this emotional disconnect on “Limbo,” where he’s stuck in this misunderstanding — nothing is resolved and time just stands still (“Sitting on the floor in your apartment / You ain’t even asking if I want something lately”). Lyles — really leaning on his rap influences, with almost Mac Miller vibes — describes someone being overwhelmed by ambition and pressure, marred by the unresolved trauma of an alleged parent, as he sings, “Four years is gonna kill you faster than it got your mom.” A concern that chasing dreams or societal expectations is leading them toward self-destruction, Lyles is set in panic mode — a limbo — and this desperate need to be truly understood as both struggle in this desperate mistake.
A major shift in the four-track EP is the piano ballad “Truce,” a dire plea to make things right. Here, Lyles — trapped in this unknown — sends a warning sign in an honest plea for peace and understanding. He first admits his feelings upfront in the first verse, saying he feels like a fraud, trying to appear more “together” or “cool” than they really is. The anchor of the song is in the chorus, though. It’s urgent, emotional and melancholic: “I’d like to call a truce / For me and you.” The plea becomes an earnest attempt to save face as his heart simply breaks — it’s kind of the breaking point for the EP and for Lyles in his relationship. Ultimately, though, both Lyles and his partner stay struggling, “I’m a lost soul… you’re a calm, wreck, sunset / We’re falling apart.” Lyles’s vocals take center stage here, as he wants to put down their defenses and stop hurting one another, as they had been in the previous track, and stop pretending.
The album closes with “It Isn’t Over Until You Die,” as Lyles yearns for peace, meaning, connection and emotional relief, even when he hit rock bottom on “Truce.” In the end, Lyles leans into the existential,” yearning for genuine belonging, for life to mean something more and the desire to find hope, even if it means faking it for a while longer. The song is, at its core, a cry for more: more time, more meaning, more authenticity, more love, even if it feels like it won’t come. Ultimately, Lyles yearns through sadness, even when the world doesn’t have any easy answers. Horizons: Dawn marks the first chapter — one that doesn’t shy away from the messy, complicated beauty of falling in love, losing it, and trying to understand what it all means.
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