GENRE; Pop/R&B

LABEL; XL

REVIEWED; 12 November, 2025

RATING; 8.0

Fresh, jagged, and defiantly human hooke’s law, keiyaA’s sophomore LP, feels like a private notebook dragged across a dented desk and then broadcast through a cracked speaker. Over 19 tracks and roughly 52 minutes, she folds jittery R&B, IDM-adjacent breakbeats, and DIY soul into a compact but restless thesis about selfhood: not the glossy self-care of captions and product tags, but the messy recoil of anger, tenderness, and refusal. The album is out via XL and appears across major platforms (19 tracks, ~52 mins). 

If her 2020 debut Forever, Ya Girl felt like the opening of a confident bedroom-atelier voice, hooke’s law is the voice after the argument — raw, smart, sometimes incandescently funny. keiyaA wrote, produced, and played on most of the record herself; that do-it-yourself ethos gives the arrangements an intimate unpredictability. Moments collapse and rebound like an elastic band under pressure, a fitting metaphor she leans into: the title itself reframes emotional recoil as law, pattern, and survival. 

Sonically the album is admirably restless. Tracks like “take it” and “stupid prizes” marry clipped, percussive production with melodic lines that bend around vocal runs — keiyaA uses Auto-Tune and layered harmonies as textural tools rather than crutches, making even spare moments feel sculpted. Elsewhere, the record dips into quieter, more claustrophobic spaces (the small, taut “be quiet!!!” and the two-part “motions” sequence) where breath and room tone become as important as chord changes. The result is music that rewards repeat listens: it’s economical where it needs to be and delightfully weird when it wants to be. 

Lyrically the album balances sharp one-liners with interior monologues. keiyaA interrogates expectations placed on Black and brown women, on bodies and affect, with lines that can be mordant (“my landlord is a fool” — small but cutting) or quietly devastating. The sequencing interludes, reprises, and abrupt endings makes the record feel cyclical rather than linear, which aligns with her stated aim of presenting self-love as a spiral rather than a tidy arc. Critics have picked up on that tension between playfulness and seriousness; the press response has been broadly positive, noting how the record juggles complexity without collapsing into obfuscation. 

If there’s a fault line, it’s that the record sometimes relishes its rough edges so much that a couple of songs feel intentionally unresolved; a listener who wants tidy hooks or radio-ready polish might be impatient. But that impatience is part of the point: hooke’s law refuses to be docile. It’s an argument in song form with punches, asides, and reconciliations and it’s all the better for being uneven where life is uneven. For listeners who like their contemporary R&B and experimental pop to think and to bruise, this is one of the season’s most compelling full-lengths. 

Standout tracks to start with: “take it” (the moody single that previews the record), “stupid prizes” (a jagged, immediate highlight), and the “motions” pair for how they reshape space and tension across the album. If you want to buy or stream, Bandcamp, Spotify, Apple Music, and XL’s release page all have the record up now.