Gus Dapperton’s fourth album is a hard left turn from the moody, intimate bedroom-pop sound that the New York-hailing artist has established across the last decade. 4 Dear Life is positively loaded with kinetic tempos and festival-ready synths highly reminiscent of the electronic sound that coursed through American pop music during the EDM boom of the mid-2010s. (To wit: Big-beat maestro A-Trak throws in on the thumping house jam “Holding On.”) Despite the personality-driven intimacy of his work, Dapperton’s always been one for collaboration, and 4 Dear Life is no different in that regard: Genre-fluid rapper Ledbyher adds a sense of punchy attitude to the propulsive “Sweet Tooth,” and Leicester indie-pop outfit hard life pops up on the squiggly “She Got the Funk,” returning the favor after Dapperton appeared on their 2022 single “ANTIFREEZE.”