Leon Thomas has shared “Crash & Burn,” the fourth song from his upcoming debut album, Electric Dusk. Faxx Only and BNYX of the Working on Dying production collective produced it.
Against a chopped and swirled backbeat, Thomas casts himself as a hapless man with a bummer love life. Like the calm before the storm, the good times don’t last long before the inevitable breakup. He cites his interests and their unwillingness to be chill and go with the flow as the fatal setback each time.
“This is a song about yearning for a meaningful relationship, but only finding surface-level and materialistic bonds and the emotional toll it takes on you. It’s the journey of feeling numb to the possibility of finding true love at all,” explains Thomas.
“Crash & Burn” is Thomas’ first song of new material released this year. It follows his previous singles “X-Rated” featuring Benny the Butcher, the Ty Dolla $ign-guested “Love Jones” and “Breaking Point.”
Discussing the latter song, Thomas told Rated R&B, “I recently went through a breakup and felt like I needed a song that spoke to some of the emotions and the feelings that I was going through.”
He added, “We kind of put something together that was reminiscent of D’Angelo and some of the early 2000s neo-soul that I respect and love. There’s so many different aspects of this song lyrically that kind of play into the ‘why’ behind the production style that I used for it. I needed people to really feel what my heart was going through in this tug-of-war moment.”
Thomas recently released a black-and-white visual to support “Breaking Point.”
All four tracks mentioned above will make Thomas’ Electric Dusk. His debut album will be released on Ty Dolla $ign’s EZMNY Records in partnership with Motown Records.
“I think one of my stamps right now, musically, is my ability to engineer myself and pitch my voice up and get real experimental with elements of alternative R&B,” Thomas shared with Rated R&B of the album. “I wanted to dive into that landscape in a more experimental way — a little more fearless — and attack the marketplace with something I can call my own.”
In February, Thomas duetted with Coco Jones for a Spotify Singles cover of Justin Timberlake and Beyoncé’s “Until The End of Time.”
Listen to “Crash & Burn” by Leon Thomas below.
