Does It?

PREMIERE: Huck - Does It?

Phillipe Roberts

Put those warm and fuzzy connotations to the side and it becomes easy to dismiss romantic love as a form of thrill-seeking, a high-stakes game of emotional chicken. When the dust inevitably settles, who remains intact and who will be stuck saving face?

In delicate ballad form on “Does It?,” Huck gazes into his own reflection for a while, watching his consciousness “turn into streams” as he tries to read the writing on the wall. The arrangement is sparse—electric piano and brushed drums speak at a whisper, as if he’s trying to keep his sleepless self-serenade from being heard by someone in the next room or even in the same bed. Huck sounds beaten down by love, desperate to parse out whether this latest obsession is another disaster in the making while admitting his own faulty judgement.

“I understand a fragment while a greater truth exists” might feel too relatable to bear, but Huck cushions it in woozy, synthesized slurs, his voice a beacon of clarity while darkness crashes around in a deafening silence. As the arpeggiated final climax comes burbling in, only to be replaced with a slowed down and detuned reprise, you can hear those fears becoming reality. Defiance is an admirable trait, but that assured calm only comes after the storm. “Does it?” is the sound of Huck bracing for impact, a wounded soul taking shelter within himself.