The 1975, “Being Funny In A Foreign Language.”

It’s an odd assertion that in 2022, a record 44 minutes in length is considered “pared down.” Yet it’s apt when the artist in question is The 1975.

Matty Healy and co.’s last album, 2020’s meandering Notes On A Conditional Form clocked it at 23 songs and considerably over an hour, going in numerous thematic and sonic directions that seemed to have little overlap or, even, much tangential connection.

On Being Funny In A Foreign Language, the band’s fifth album, the instrumentation and arrangements remain varied, while the subject matter is more focused. The list of contributing musicians is lengthy and eclectic, including Michelle Zauner (Japanese Breakfast), Warren Ellis (Nick Cave) and Jack Antonoff, who plays a bunch of stuff here in addition to producing.

In fact, jazzy opener “The 1975” (this band really enjoys the wink-wink signature to start each album) at one point sounds like Healy is actually directing a symphony through a tune-up.

Notes was about everything all at once, mirroring life in all its complexities. It was full of anxiety and confusion. Being Funny is about a break-up that has haunted Healy in different ways.

Healy and drummer George Daniel are the songwriting constants on all 11 tracks. The more straightforward songwriting approach may be due to maturation (guitarist Adam Hann is a father now) and sobriety (Healy is four years sober from heroin). Bassist Ross MacDonald may not have been a chief writer but does a fine job of laying down the rhythm with Daniel.

There’s nothing remotely like the anarcho-punk cut “People” here, but album closer “When We Are Together” is sonically unique its own way, starting out like a ’90s alt-rock song before transforming into a rootsy number with fiddle accents. But it’s the words that show that The 1975 aren’t looking at the destruction of the world or society this time around.

“I like socks with sandals, she’s more into scented candles/ Oh, I’ll never get that smell out of my bag,” Healy sings of a past relationship. He weaves this remembrance with reflections on his own tendency to be a lightning rod for criticism: “It was poorly handled, the day we both got canceled because I’m a racist and you’re some kind of slag.” The latter reference is likely related to a 2020 Tweet about George Floyd where, after speaking up for Black Lives Matter, he linked to one of his songs and got accused of trying to profiteer.

The self-titled album opener introduces a symphonic string section that turns out to be pivotal to this record. The song sounds like something Snow Patrol would release circa 2006, though Healy’s singing is sardonic as he lists some awkward moments from the past, before apologizing:

“I’m sorry about my 20s, I was learning the ropes/ I had a tendency of thinking about it after I spoke,” he sings, before connecting personal experience to a bigger picture: “I can’t sleep ’cause the American Dream has been buying up all of my self-esteem/ Whilst Q-anon created a legitimate scene but it was just some bloke in the Philippines/ … I’m sorry if you’re living and you’re 17.”

The 1975 went looking for an outside producer for the album, and came back with Antonoff. His presence is especially felt on “Happiness,” which offers up plenty of accentuating brass alongside the funky arrangement and sounds closer to his work in Bleachers than anything he’s done with Taylor Swift or other artists.

It’s a party jam type of song, ending in a jazzy freakout, despite it being about Healy spiraling into uncertainty.

“I’m gonna stop messing it up because I’m feeling like I’m messing it up because I’m calling out your name and God help me ’cause, Oh, I’m never gonna love again,” he sings.

Then there’s the darkly disturbing “Looking For Somebody (To Love),” which—set to a synth-laden sound recalling The 1975’s early, glossier material—is either about an angry, misunderstood guy trying to feel macho or the poppiest first-person narrative of a gunman on a mission since Foster the People’s  “Pumped Up Kicks.”

Sings Healy: “Somebody lying on the field/ Somebody crying on the phone/ … But the boy with ‘the plan’ and the gun in his hand was looking for somebody to love.”

Nor does the mood lift on cello-led “Part Of The Band,” another song on which Healy mentions being canceled and his prior drug use, when the wheels came off and he was alone: “Now I’m at home; somewhere I don’t like/ Eating stuff off of motorbikes/ Coming to her lookalikes.”

He takes a self-deprecating look at his life—”Am I just some post-coke, average, skinny bloke calling his ego imagination?”—but repeats a sort of mantra: “I’ve not picked up that in 1,400 days and nine hours and 16 minutes babe/ It’s kind of my daily iteration.” He’s referring to his sobriety.

On this album, the catchiest songs are the darkest. On “Oh Caroline,” Healy tells a flame that he’s suicidal, while asking her to decide how much his life is worth.

“If I’m undecided, will you decide for me?” he sings, later deciding that he wants another chance to, “get it right this time,” over a plinking guitar melody like the ones that brought The 1975 success in the first place (“Chocolate,” “Sex”).

This is followed by the album’s most euphoric but complicated moment on “I’m In Love With You.” The latter half of the album is more overtly about the disintegration of a relationship. On mid-tempo ballad “About You,” a bittersweet, hazy rumination with beautiful guest vocals by Carly Holt, he sings of getting married in his imagination.

The album’s one brief respite from harsh reality is “Wintering,” a song about a family doing its best to reunite at home two days before Christmas, with all the travel headaches and last-minute planning that entails. It’s a song  you can move to, and many will relate to the rush to make it home and see loved ones again.

On slowed-down, bluesy ballads “All I Need to Hear” and “Human Too,” Healy begs a lover to return. On the former, he sings of his kitchen being bare, not wanting to spend time with friends or listen to music, or even have the adoration of fans. “Just tell me you love me, that’s all that I need to hear,” he declares. “I’ve been told so many times before/ But hearing it from you means much more.”

On the latter, he begs for forgiveness for his faults, like his anger, his pride (“I’m sorry that I quite liked seeing myself on the news”) and his inability to change through it all. Sonically, this is another great direction for The 1975. Lyrically, you hope that Healy is no longer in the place he was when he wrote these songs, because it’s not very funny.

Follow editor Roman Gokhman at Twitter.com/RomiTheWriter.