After catching the music world’s attention drumming in the Minneapolis indie rock trio Now, Now, Bradley Hale changes sonic direction a bit with his synth-heavy side project, Sombear.

The songs on Sombear’s vibrant debut album, Love You In The Dark, are consistently pushed forward by pulsating rhythms that are clearly spawned from a drummer’s heart, but the evocative material is also imbued with a haunting edge and throbbing modern textures. Hale boldly explores the divergent tones of electro-pop, R&B, and ambient rock fluidly throughout the record, with the hypnotic material frequently coloured by loneliness and isolation balanced with an ultimate aim for connection and compassion.

“Incredibly Still” is an enthralling lead-off track, with hints of M83 layered within the track’s soaring synths and magnetic beats. Rather than falling into the antiseptic, pre-programmed sterility that plagues the countless chillwave bedroom projects that litter the current musical landscape, Hale injects plenty of personality and mercurial charm into these imaginative songs. A dynamic guitar riff forms the agitated core of “The Way We Are”, while the ghostly reclusiveness of “LA” stands in stark contrast to the congested, illusory lifestyles that fill America’s second largest city.

The entrancing pulse of the title track gives rise to lyrics that examine the tenuous balance between searching for companionship in this increasingly impersonal world, along with a need to retreat to the solitary shadows in order to find who we are. There’s plenty of warmth and comfort to be found in the darkness of these times, but that temporary consolation doesn’t necessarily equate to love or happiness in the cold light of day. The crisp, clean production continually injects these songs with a spacious elegance as well as an icy cool, giving the material a fresh style and contemporary flair.

“Easy Thief” is a slow-burning number driven along by a staccato guitar riff, that gradually builds to an eventual release of the tension that permeates the start of the number, while the jubilant, Latin salsa rhythms of “Never Say Baby” contains elements of Justin Timberlake’s sultry dancefloor fillers, just without the lavish excess that drags down much of his current output. But the upbeat numbers on Love You In The Dark are consistently balanced out by more morose material, with “2002″‘s doleful, melancholy atmospherics bringing the vibe of the record to a downcast point that continues throughout the final two wistful songs of the album.

“The Good” builds to an anthemic, soaring conclusion, but the fragile early moments of the track are layered with a painful sense of nostalgia, as carefree older days are longed for in order to forget the desolation of today. “Rich Hair” brings the album to an elegant, if a bit unsettled end, suggesting that whatever companionship the subject has been searching for throughout these songs has been found for the moment, if only to run their fingers through their hair and find solace in that simple pleasure. There is a strong sense of chilly detachment within Sombear’s electronic-tinged songs, but the material is also imbued with a yearning for genuine connection in this increasingly isolated modern world. Music and love can both bridge the gap between that vast expanse if we turn to them, it’s just a matter of which one we trust in more when we turn out the lights and need to feel less alone.