Some synthwave wants you to remember the ’80s; others understand why we keep going back there in the first place. Strong Heart, the new nine-track collaboration between Oceanside85 and SelloRekt/L.A Dreams, belongs firmly in the latter camp. Sure, the neon glow is here. The enormous synths are here. The nighttime drives, warm pavement, fading summers, and memories that somehow become more vivid the further away we get are all here. But Oceanside85 has never been particularly interested in nostalgia simply for nostalgia’s sake, and Strong Heart hits harder because there is an actual beating heart underneath all that gorgeous electronic machinery. This thing aches. It celebrates. It remembers. Most importantly, it lives.
The opening one-two-three punch is ridiculous. “All In” comes charging through the speakers with exactly the attitude its title promises, Chelsea Owen’s vocals refusing half-measures while Kevin Montgomery surrounds her with the kind of shimmering, propulsive production that makes standing still damn near impossible. Then comes “Icy,” darker and wounded, turning emotional distance into something you can practically feel crawling across the speakers. By the time the title track arrives, the album has already revealed its real subject: not romance, exactly, but what remains after romance has done its damage. “Strong Heart” is beautiful because it refuses to pretend that loss disappears. Love changes shape. People disappear. Memories stay. Somehow, we keep moving anyway. That emotional honesty gives these songs considerably more weight than the genre’s familiar sunsets and sports cars might suggest.
And then Strong Heart rolls down the windows. “Memories” and “Summer’s Over” are pure synthwave catnip, drenched in sunlight, motion, desire, and that strange melancholy that arrives when you realize the perfect moment is already becoming something you will eventually miss. “Summer’s Over” especially understands something this music has always been uniquely good at capturing: the sadness hiding inside happiness. You’re dancing, you’re kissing somebody, the night feels endless—and somewhere underneath it all you already know morning is coming. Oceanside85 makes that tension sound euphoric rather than depressing. These aren't songs trying to recreate 1986. They are songs about that universal human desire to stop the clock when life suddenly gets good. That difference matters.
The back half refuses to coast. “Girl Code,” featuring Mayah Camara, adds another texture before “Frequency” opens the record outward, transforming its personal searching into something almost cosmic. “Cagey” brings everything back to the bruised heart, acknowledging how difficult trust becomes once somebody has given you a reason to stop handing it out so freely. And then there is “Synchronized,” which might be the album’s most satisfying destination. After an album filled with broken connections, remembered lovers, emotional wreckage and people trying desperately to get onto the same wavelength, Oceanside85 finally turns inward. Loving somebody else means considerably less if you haven't figured out how to live with yourself. It could have been sentimental. Instead, it feels earned.
That is ultimately why Strong Heart works so damn well. Oceanside85 and SelloRekt/L.A Dreams have made a synthwave record overflowing with everything fans come looking for—towering synths, driving basslines, dreamy atmospherics, irresistible hooks, and enough neon electricity to illuminate a midnight highway—but they haven't stopped there. Chelsea Owen gives these songs vulnerability, humor, sexuality, hurt, and defiance, while Montgomery's production gives those emotions somewhere enormous to live. Strong Heart isn't looking backward. It's looking at everything we carry forward: the lovers, the mistakes, the summers that ended too quickly, the nights we wish we could have back, and the scars we accumulated along the way. Turn it up. Roll the windows down. Keep driving. Some memories deserve to glow forever.
Check out Strong Heart on Oceanside85's Bandcamp page!
