Del Water Gap – ‘Chasing the Chimera’ album review: give the guys a chance
It must be really tough to be a male pop star out there nowadays. No, there is genuinely not a hint of irony in that statement – because, as Del Water Gap proves, it’s basically impossible for anyone to truly know what we want from them.
The Skinny: The third album from the Brooklyn artist, Chasing the Chimera, being released by Mom + Pop Records, is something of a constant, frustrating juxtaposition between true untapped potential and utter chart pop drivel. It’s certainly sure-footed, but almost too emphatically so, where it seems to follow the suit of its male commercial pop counterparts, while only showing fleeting flashes of the true originality it really wishes it could put on full display.
In this sense, it’s quite difficult to know exactly what kind of audience the album is specifically geared towards. On the one hand, it opens with the shining, naive romanticism of ‘Small Town Joan of Arc’, reminding you of the rosy teenage visions of 5 Seconds of Summer or Benson Boone. But only two tracks later, on ‘Please Follow’, there’s an elixir of neo-soul and jazz which will unsurprisingly prick the ears compared to the rather gratingly upbeat slew of meaningless pop so far.
Songs like ‘Please Follow’, as well as its tracklist neighbour, ‘Eastside Girls’, are the perfect embodiment of what a genuinely new and exciting male pop blueprint could look like. Instead, it seems shortly thereafter that Del Water Gap has retreated back into what he has been instructed is the trusted formula.
Glaringly obvious references to real life events may have – somehow – managed to pay off for the likes of Noah Kahan, but here, with a repeated chorus lyric on ‘Ghost In the Uniform’ about a “Covid era fling” only serves to make the toes curl.
The Verdict: Ultimately, you can perhaps look more kindly on Del Water Gap in this situation than you might have done otherwise, because you can’t shake the feeling that this is all the pop landscape has to offer young guys right now.
Rightly, the women are having their moment in a much more diverse landscape than they have ever had access to before, but for the men, it’s a case of relying on tropes and the hope that a hit might soon come around to send you on your way towards the type of music you really want to make. For Del Water Gap, it seems like a scenario of having to keep the faith.
Defining track: ‘Please Follow’
Release date: November 7th, 2025 | Producer: Del Water Gap/Gabe Goodman/Jonathan Wilson | Label: Mom + Pop Records
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