KENTON Turns Vulnerability into Alt-Pop Brilliance in ‘Sweetmouth’
- Curious For Music Team
- 1 day ago
- 2 min read
Photographer Credit: Maseo Refuerzo
In an era where pop music often leans on artifice, KENTON’s debut album Sweetmouth arrives like a jolt of truth — dazzling, disarming, and deeply human.
The LA-based singer-songwriter and multi-hyphenate constructs a sonic and emotional universe that feels both confessional and cinematic. Over fifteen tracks, KENTON dissects queerness, cultural duality, and familial tension with striking candour, emerging as one of alt-pop’s most distinct new voices. This is not merely a debut record — it’s a reckoning set to melody.
Opening track “I’m Breaking My Father’s Heart” sets the tone for the emotional excavation to come. With trembling vocals and an almost theatrical vulnerability, KENTON explores the burden of expectation and the ache of becoming. The song feels like an unfiltered diary entry turned performance art — part lament, part liberation. His storytelling lands somewhere between the intimacy of Mitski and the ambition of Perfume Genius, balancing fragility with a fearless sense of self-inquiry.
On “Vaporize Me”, KENTON displays his remarkable ability to merge personal heritage with pop experimentation. By reworking a traditional Hakka folk melody into a pulsing electronic anthem, he bridges cultural lineage and queer futurism with effortless grace. Meanwhile, “Wannabe American” transforms biting social commentary into something danceable, capturing the surreal humour and exhaustion of assimilation in the West. It’s pop as protest, subversive and self-aware, delivered with wit sharp enough to cut glass.
Musically, Sweetmouth refuses to be boxed in. One moment it’s shimmering synths and sweat-soaked euphoria (“3 AM in Taipei”), the next it’s stripped-back melancholy (“Without You”, co-written with Wrabel). The album thrives in these tonal shifts — its elasticity mirrors the fluidity of identity itself. KENTON’s jazz training lends the record a lushness and compositional precision, but what lingers most is his emotional generosity. Even in its most polished moments, Sweetmouth feels startlingly intimate, as if whispered directly into the listener’s ear.
Ultimately, Sweetmouth is more than a collection of songs — it’s a testament to the courage it takes to exist fully and loudly in one’s own truth. KENTON turns the turbulence of self-discovery into something transcendent, crafting an album that glows with empathy and resolve. It’s a record for outsiders, dreamers, and anyone who’s ever felt the weight of becoming. With Sweetmouth, KENTON doesn’t just introduce himself — he announces a movement.
