Richmond, Virginia has a new landmark—not a building or a statue, but a sonic structure with sharp corners, neon-lit hallways, and emotionally-charged hidden chambers. Opin’s latest full-length album, Embrace the Grift, set for release on August 8, 2025, is less an album and more a living, breathing installation. This is experimental pop dressed in industrial shadows, dipped in electronic murk, and polished with an almost orchestral sense of purpose. At 11 tracks, the project is a fever-dream meditation on repetition, digital identity, and raw, unfiltered emotion—and somehow, it’s also a dance album. Just not the kind of dancing you do with your feet. This is the kind of dancing you do with your neurons.
From the opening seconds of “Pinches,” Opin wastes no time plunging listeners into a realm where grooves aren’t simply felt—they evolve, rupture, and reform. The album’s recurring “Pinches” motif—four separate interludes scattered like breadcrumbs—serves as a narrative spine, warping in tone with each return like memories reshuffled in a dream. It’s a bold choice that breaks conventional album structure, yet never feels disjointed. Instead, these tracks act like pressure valves, releasing tension or introducing it, depending on where they appear. Like checking your pulse mid-trip.
“All Night Repeating” is a standout early on, living up to its title in spirit if not in sound. Built on a looping pulse and haunted vocal lines, it plays like the soundtrack to insomnia, evoking that peculiar clarity that hits around 3 a.m. when the world is asleep and your brain won’t let you be. The layering of synths, skittering beats, and lyrical refrains make it feel both claustrophobic and expansive, like being stuck in a memory you’re trying to remix.
“Esso Heir” steps into glitchier territory, offering a mid-album climax of warbled vocals and scrambled time signatures. Here, Opin’s willingness to abandon safety pays off in spades. It’s not a song that’s easy to sing along with—but it’s one that sticks with you in strange ways, like the way you remember a line of dialogue from a movie you don’t recall watching. It’s abstract expressionism for the SoundCloud era.
Then there’s “JJ”—a track that acts as both a sonic detox and a philosophical turning point. Stripped back and simmering with melancholy, it reminds listeners that Opin isn’t all about frenetic energy and audio collage. There’s heart under the hardware, and “JJ” puts that vulnerability front and center. The track feels like the moment you step outside a club at 2 a.m.—the silence ringing in your ears, the streetlamps humming, your thoughts finally catching up to your body.
But Embrace the Grift isn’t content with emotional clarity. It plunges back into the abyss with “Snow James” and “Exit Check,” two tracks that balance angularity with ambiance. “Snow James” especially stands out with its frozen synth textures and abstract rhythm, evoking the beauty of a landscape that’s just a little too cold to touch. There’s a slow burn here that feels earned, like the album is exhaling after holding tension for too long. “Exit Check,” on the other hand, feels almost like a system reboot. Glitchy yet oddly soulful, it’s a track that pulses with finality, suggesting something is ending—even as more sonic pathways begin to open.
The penultimate track, “Heat Rotator,” delivers on its title with friction-heavy momentum and swirling chaos. It’s the sound of overheating—a mind stretched too far, a night too long, a heart burning at both ends. There’s a subtle panic embedded in the production, but Opin never lets it spiral. They walk the line between overload and euphoria with precision, pulling back just before combustion.
And then, just when it feels like there’s nothing left to reveal, Embrace the Grift closes with “40 Years in 40 Weeks.” It’s a fitting title for a finale that sounds both eternal and compressed, sprawling in its ambition but tightly wound in execution. There’s a maturity here that reframes the rest of the album, revealing the chaos and fragmentation as part of a broader journey. It’s as if all the disjointed pieces finally clicked into place—not neatly, but meaningfully.
Behind the scenes, the production credentials add further polish. With Jeff Zeigler mixing and Fred Kevorkian handling the mastering, there’s an undeniable clarity to the chaos. Every glitch, wobble, and warped synth line feels deliberate—like a brushstroke in a painting that initially seems abstract but reveals form the longer you look. The sonic architecture is precise, but never sterile. Organic warmth leaks through the cracks, grounding even the most alien moments in something real and human.
Opin‘s confidence shines throughout Embrace the Grift. They’re not trying to appease anyone. They’re not pandering to playlist algorithms or trying to land a TikTok hit. This is music for those who want to sit with discomfort, who want to be challenged and surprised, who find beauty in the cracks between genres. It’s a rare thing these days—a full-length album that demands your full attention and rewards you for giving it.
Ultimately, the “grift” in the title isn’t about deception—it’s about survival. It’s about what it takes to exist as an artist today, to navigate a world that commodifies creativity and demands constant output. Opin isn’t selling you a product. They’re inviting you into a process—a messy, immersive, transcendent one.
So go ahead. Embrace the disorientation. Embrace the risk. Embrace the Grift. It might just rewire the way you think about experimental pop—and maybe even music altogether.
