Following the recent announcement of his sophomore album, Get On The Otherside, Helsinki-born artist Bobby Oroza shares a new single and accompanying video, "Sweet Agony." The 12-track album will feature the new single, closely following the quasi-title track, "The Otherside," and the string of singles released last year, including "Make Me Believe," " I Got Love," and "Loving Body." The visual for "Sweet Agony," which Bobby directed and edited himself, plays out like a nightmarish audition tape where he casts himself as a vampire with aspirations of being a performer, singing the soulful ballad to a group of unimpressed talent agents. The song itself mirrors that vulnerability, addressing the tug at the heart that comes with longing for someone dear, and acknowledges the sweet side of such intense emotions. Having conquered "The Otherside," Bobby Oroza returns to cast another spell of Dreamboat Soul and achingly cool Analogue R&B.


All brooding, slicked back, and reflective from a sun-kissed paradise that could just as easily be coming live from the jukebox of a retro diner, "Sweet Agony" is the Finnish crooner at his charismatic, enigmatic, complicated best. Bobby Oroza puts his desire for the profound on wax with his sophomore album, Get On The Otherside. Musically, he has updated the formula we were introduced to on the first record, This Love (2019.) However, lyrically, these songs are bravely rooted in the more complicated, ubiquitous inner-tangles of life, like self-examination and coming to terms with the vastness of the human experience. With Coronavirus bringing the world to a halt, Bobby—a father and husband—had to do something. No tours to play or studio time to fill, Bobby found himself back in the construction yard, doing blue-collar work to provide for his family. "I was super-grateful for the work—a lot of my colleagues didn't have an option like that," Bobby admits.


More than a few personal hardships forced him to acknowledge and work through some brutal truths. And what came of it? Well, for one, this new record, Get On The Otherside, which pretty well describes what Bobby's been through: he had to demolish his ego, his old ways of thinking, and his tried approaches to anchor into a refreshed perspective with new understandings. As Bobby tells it, "I had to do some real self-searching, come to terms with what was wrong, and how much of it I was responsible for." So, how does this translate to the new album? Moments of clarity as to where the real value in life lies on "I Got Love," encouraging numbers like the quasi-title track, "The Otherside," and declarations of self-actualization on "My Place, My Time." Even the more straight-forward love songs are outside-the-box lyrically, like "Sweet Agony" & "Loving Body."


As expected, Bobby's song-writing still has that raw, direct edge to it, but an evolution has surely taken place. There are new points-of-view on familiar territory, which in Bobby's words, "for me to love, I needed to take a bigger view of love. One with less ego and more empathy," really hold true. The result is a record with Bobby's new-found humility on full display and a message of encouragement to anyone who is struggling and can't see a way out. It still may be hard to nail down and define Bobby and his sound. He's no one thing more than the other, but what he's showing us now, on Get On The Otherside, is that we can, also, label him a soulful, philosophical optimist. Someone who can say a lot with a little and who wants us all to know that it's us that has to do the hard lifting to truly live a life in love—both with the world and with yourself. Bobby Oroza's new album, Get On The Otherside, backed by Cold Diamond & Mink, is out 6/10 on Big Crown Records. Pre-order it right here.