Rhye Goes Dark On Its New Single 'Needed'

Rhye's "Needed" bills itself as the first single to a new "piano project" titled Spirit, due out next week. Like the sensual, tastefully rendered intimacies that came before it, "Needed" features Mike Milosh's fluttering sigh, swirling with delicately laid instrumentation. On paper, it's a classic Rhye song. (One that just so happens to be co-written by Semisonic's Dan Wilson — who lent his hand to Adele's "Someone Like You.")

Still, there's something more brooding at play here, as if Milosh is a siren lulling his one-person audience into post-quarrel comfort. Tucked into the edges of its chorus — "I wanna be needed" — is a line that could be ripped from 50 Shades of Grey. "Why you look so fragile? Do I seem so bad?" sighs Milosh over a minor-key arrangement — metronome, a piano for the first time, lush strings and all — that resembles an inverted version of Rhye's "Open."

"Oh you look so pretty, there's no devils here," Milosh continues, a conjuring disguised as a come-on. After last year's lovely, if one-note, Blood, a little bit of danger is a good look for Rhye.

Rhye's upcoming "piano project" Spirit is out May 10 on Loma Vista.

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