With all the talk about 2016’s revival, it felt appropriate for Cavetown to release a new album this year. British-born Robin Skinner’s musical solo project was a staple of a particular internet niche in the 2010s — one I was a loyal part of. Although his music has since been memed for its cringey lyrics and indie-twee overtones, many misfit and queer teens on the internet connected with his music. This group included my 12-year-old self, whose first concert was his.
Skinner started posting his music online at 14, but now at 27, he’s breaking the indie-pop mold he created in 2013. Though he left the ukulele behind years ago, Cavetown’s sixth studio album “Running With Scissors,” released on Jan. 17, is sonically a far cry from his viral “This Is Home.” He moves away from his typical soft acoustic sound to lean into grittier sounds, revealing a much broader swath of musical influences than his past albums.
The album starts slow with “Skip,” introducing his classic soft vocals and acoustic guitar, then evolving into a more energetic, electric pop sound, setting the tone for the following tracks. “Skip” transitions smoothly into “Cryptid,” a song that, through fuzzy guitars and pointed lyrics, reveals Skinner’s festering anger at the world as a transgender man living through a time where trans rights are under fire both in the U.S. and his native U.K. The song’s quippy, almost spoken verses also reveal underlying hip-hop influences while the instrumentation draws inspiration from post-hardcore and emo.
Skinner said some songs stemmed from his recent interest in these genres, specifically citing popular 2000’s emo band Pierce the Veil — whose song he covered in a 2025 EP — and this influence can be seen even clearer in “Tarmac” and “Straight Through My Head (DO IT!!!).” Both tracks feature screamed lyrics, along with grungy guitars and heavier drums, even throwing in math rock guitar licks in “Straight Through My Head.”
The album also brings a strong hyperpop flavor that runs through almost every song. While electronic elements have always held prominence in his music, the production trades the twinkly beats typically associated with Cavetown for louder, clanging instrumentation and 8-bit accents.
The hyperpop production peaks with “Sailboat,” a song featuring fellow 2010’s indie music internet star Chloe Moriondo. The bassy, electronic percussion, noisy guitars, distorted vocals and manically fast tempo evoke 2020 hyperpop stars 100 gecs, led by fellow transgender icon Laura Les.
Although musically Cavetown’s music has matured significantly, his lyrics sometimes fall back into his corny internet canon with lines like “Uncanny valley girl dream/The main character acting like an NPC” and “I’m the reaper in your phone/Horsemen of the apocalypse, I’m your Al Capone.” While they do make me cringe to read, hyperbolically angsty and ironic lyrics are a staple in hyperpop, so they don’t feel completely out of place on a more mature album.
The album winds down with “First Time,” the shortest and weakest link of an otherwise interesting album, and “Running With Scissors,” which brings back the classic gentle indie Cavetown sound.
Thematically, this album shows an upturn in Cavetown’s music. Much of his previous music dealt with issues of depression, anxiety and general struggles with identity and self-acceptance. “Running With Scissors” sees him find who he is and embrace the contradictions within himself. Although some songs deal with tough topics — “No Bark No Bite” revisits the struggle for acceptance he endured in his transition and “First Time” addresses self-deprecating thoughts — even these songs are more upbeat than his previous work.
The throughline of the album is clearly love. This is overtly true in songs like “Skip,” “Rainbow Gal” and “Baby Spoon” that are ballads about his long-term girlfriend and “Micah,” dedicated to his younger sister, but the album is also a love letter to his varied musical interests, and his own journey. Although it is a huge departure from his previous music, the album never feels like it has forgotten its predecessors but looks back every once in a while to recall where it came from.
“Running With Scissors,” the product of a decade-long search for identity, is a confident departure from Skinner’s childhood roots, and opens doors for many more years of musical progression.