Royel Otis Drop Summer-Ready Heartbreaker ‘car’ Ahead Of 'hickey'

Liam Tyler
Jun 26
1 min read

Royel Otis have dropped their latest single ‘car,' a stripped-down, sun-drenched track built on jangle pop guitars and bittersweet goodbyes. Serving as the second preview of their upcoming album, hickey, which lands on 22nd August.

The song got an early push as BBC Radio 1’s Hottest Record and lives up to the tag. ‘car’ is catchy in a low-stakes, slacker kind of way, all wistful hooks and offhand charm. Royel sings like he’s halfway out the door, repeating the line “I think it’s time to say goodbye” over a drumbeat that keeps pushing things forward.

It’s a minimal song, and that’s part of its appeal. Produced alongside Blake Slatkin and Omer Fedi - names behind some of the biggest pop tracks in recent years - ‘car’ doesn’t try to be huge. It just sticks. The vocal delivery feels personal, and the lyrics are just cryptic enough to chew on.

The new release follows ‘moody’, which set the tone for hickey with its late-’90s groove and came co-written by Amy Allen. Together, the two tracks hint that the new album will lean into rawer, more emotionally open territory without losing the looseness that defines their sound.

If ‘car’ is any sign, the album won’t be trying to reinvent the wheel. It’s more interested in the quiet moments - breakups that don’t explode, memories that hang around, feelings that linger longer than they should. Royel Otis sound more comfortable than ever with the in-between.

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