Conan Gray Announces A Run Of International Tour Dates For 2022.

Conan Gray has been busy since his 2020 album Kid Krow, as he has released a number of new singles, including this summer’s “People Watching.” Now, he’s got some firm plans lined up for next spring and summer: He’s heading out on a world tour.

The run of shows kicks off in Texas at the start of March and hits some other North American hot spots before he starts his European dates in May. Joining him for the North American shows will be Bülow, while he will be accompanied by Mallrat for the European gigs.

The twelve-track Kid Krow, (a nickname 21-year-old Gray received for being “broody and a little mysterious”) follows Gray’s 2018 EP Sunset Season, a series of singles, and a North American tour with New Zealand’s Benee.

Gray got his start in music on YouTube, where he had been creating vlog content on small-town Texas life since childhood. His online followers constitute much of his current young fanbase, and both Kid Krow’s sound and lyrics clearly emerge from an artist brought up on 2010s delicacies.

“Wish You Were Sober” is a more earnest iteration of Arctic Monkeys hit “Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High.” The tongue-twisty hook of “Maniac” feels like Hayley Kiyoko’s speed-round verse on “Curious.” The album’s blend of bouncy pop, 70s guitar rock, dreamy acoustics and dance synth shares the vibe of Lorde’s Melodrama or Taylor Swift’s grown-up albums.

Gray, who writes all of his songs, cites Swift as his favorite lyricist, and her influence comes through in both the album’s inclination toward specific narratives as well as in individual lyrics; in “Fight or Flight” Gray sings “fight or flight, I’d rather die than have to cry in front of you,” mirroring Swift’s sentiment on “Cruel Summer” that “if I bleed you’ll be the last to know.” Track “Heather” opens with early Swift-esque soft, lulling guitar and the line “I still remember the third of December…” before unfolding a very “You Belong With Me” story.

“Heather,” diverges from Swift, however, in that it demonstrates a thematic foundation of the album: Gray’s Gen Z (he was born in 1998) sensibilities.

Swift’s emotional teenage ballads were straight-up, all sincerity and anguish, taking her until 1989’s “Blank Space” and later Reputation to get dark. Gray’s generational cohort, however, is known for its bleak skepticism, passion for irony, and dark humor. Few of Gray’s moments of vulnerability on Kid Krow come without an edge, whether that’s self-hatred for said vulnerability or angry impulses to lash out at the pain-inducing object.