EP Review: PHOLKS (EP) by Leon Thomas
PHOLKS isn’t as sweeping as Electric Dusk or as immediate as “Mutt,” but that’s the point. It’s an experiment in restraint from an artist who’s spent years perfecting maximalism.
When Leon Thomas sings “I left my AMEX at the bar last night, don’t know how I called a car” and then admits he wakes up in the wrong bed, he isn’t begging your sympathy so much as inviting you into the mess. PHOLKS opens in motion, there’s a glass still sweating on the table, voices humming in the next room, and his vocal slips between a performer’s coo and a confessor’s murmur. “Just How You Are” sets this tone. Over live drums and a psychedelic guitar riff, his voice wraps around the groove as if it were smoke. The tune carries the funk‑rock energy of Mutt, yet it feels rawer: he sings about writing songs for a partner who never acknowledges them and confesses that he “always find[s] the opportunity for mistakes.” The melody is catchy, but the real hook is the vulnerability. Thomas still floats on the chord changes, but there’s less polish here than on 2023’s Electric Dusk, as the studio sheen gives way to body heat.
That contrast is important because anyone coming to PHOLKS already knows Thomas is good. He has quietly been one of R&B’s most effective technicians. The Rascals, the production duo he formed with Khristopher Riddick‑Tynes, wrote and produced hits for Ariana Grande, Post Malone, and SZA, and the pair took home a 2024 Grammy for SZA’s “Snooze” after the song spent 37 weeks atop Billboard’s R&B/Hip‑Hop chart. He grew up on Broadway, playing Young Simba in The Lion King, moved through Victorious on Nickelodeon, and by his early twenties had six writing credits on Grande’s debut album. After years behind the soundboard, he finally stepped out with 2024’s Mutt—a record that cracked the Billboard Hot 100 and pushed him onto late‑night TV. Mutt built on the lush, cinematic sound of Electric Dusk and its meditations on Hollywood power: that debut wove artificial and natural instrumentation and even flirted with psychedelic rock and free jazz, while exploring how “power tends to corrupt,” and how love and ambition melt under L.A.’s neon. If Electric Dusk was Thomas rolling film reels on his life, then PHOLKS finds him stepping away from the projector to hear himself breathe.
One of the EP’s great tricks is how easily it turns indulgence into self‑interrogation. On “My Muse,” he croons, “Tou’re not my girl, but you’re still my muse” while promising to get his money up and spend it on someone whose affection is knowingly transactional. He even admits he can “write like a hundred songs all about you” and “touch you without skin.” Underneath the sly boast, there’s a sad truth: inspiration and intimacy have become commodities. The production mirrors that push‑and‑pull, a relaxed, ‘70s-inspired groove built on warm keys and gentle percussion. Thomas’s voice doesn’t show off so much as it fills the space around it; he draws out syllables until the air seems to thicken. For all its polish, the song feels like late‑night self‑talk, a seducer asking himself why he can’t stop seducing.
If “My Muse” is about confusing love with patronage, then “5MoreMinutes” is the sound of retreat. He begs the driver to give him five more minutes because he doesn’t want to leave the cocoon he’s built with a lover, then admits that when he tells his boys he’s homesick, he really means he’s homesick from her. He’d rather be a fool for a thousand nights than spend one without her. The arrangement is atmospheric and smooth, all synth pads and deep bass; it feels like a backseat ride through a city with the windows up. Intimacy here isn’t a prize but an escape route.
That theme surfaces again in “Trapped,” where Thomas points a finger at a woman’s neglectful partner—“You don’t get love from a man who treats you like that”—while revealing his own entanglement. The hook floats over airy synth pads and a minimal beat, and his layered, reverb‑heavy vocals blur the boundary between empathy and desire. He’s offering liberation, but he sounds stuck in the same loop of chasing and chastising. “Baccarat” flips the metaphor altogether: over a bouncy bass line and crisp percussion, he brags about taking the bank every time—“I’mma take the bank every time, just like Baccarat”—but the gambling imagery barely conceals how transactional his romances have become. Texts at four in the morning go unanswered, yet he keeps buying rounds and whispering promises. Pleasure and detachment blur: is he playing the game or being played?
“Feel Alive” finds him exhausted by that cycle. He uses ocean imagery—morning tides crashing, honey dripping—and asks a lover to “feel me, feel alive through the night.” He admits he likes to get high, so let‑downs won’t hit so hard, and begs someone to take his money if it buys what he’s missing. The production unfurls lush synth layers and a mellow beat, letting his voice float like mist. There’s a desperation beneath the calm; connection is a drug, and he’s rationing it. PHOLKS closes with “Lone Wolf” featuring 4batz, a song that tests the line between autonomy and isolation. Thomas lists the opulence around him—hotel beds, expensive shoes, endless money—but in the hook, he concedes that independence will cost “a big bag at least,” that everyone around him feels like sheep. In the second verse, he loves somebody for a night, checks his phone, and wonders what’s wrong. The outro is a worthy affirmation: “I am worthy of love and connection even when I’m by myself… I honor my need for seclusion.” It’s the first time he lets go of the chase and values his own stillness.
Throughout the EP, the production is deliberately meager. Where Electric Dusk piled strings, keys, and vocal layers into a cinematic swirl, PHOLKS uses live instrumentation as punctuation: a guitar lick cutting through the haze here, a rim‑shot anchoring a memory there. The minimalism recalls the late‑night funk of Prince’s The Rainbow Children and the raw soul of D’Angelo’s Voodoo without ever name‑dropping them; you feel the lineage in the way Thomas lets silence speak. He knows the value of space because he’s spent a decade filling it for others. Now he lingers, sometimes to his detriment. Some verses coast on mood more than motion, like he’s trusting the groove to do what the writing doesn’t. Still, the shift toward interiority is compelling. He isn’t playing the messiah of R&B that fans claim he is; he’s an artist admitting he’s learning in real time. That honesty, paired with melodies that seep into your skin, makes PHOLKS feel lived‑in.
Favorite Track(s): “Just How You Are,” “5MoreMinutes,” “Lone Wolf”