Words by Skylar Sanders

Chicago-based duo DRAMA — producer Na’el Shehade and vocalist Via Rosa — have returned with their third studio album, “Platonic Romance,” their first full-length release since 2020’s “Dance Without Me.” Arriving just ahead of their North American tour, which kicks off January 23 in Minneapolis, the record feels both timely and self-assured. The album weaves together three previously released singles — “Savannah”, “On the Way,” and the title track — with ten new songs that further refine the duo’s signature sound. Standout tracks like “Here With Me,” “Texas City,” “Yalla Habibi,” and “Day by Day” showcase DRAMA at their most compelling, pairing sleek electro-R&B and jazz-influenced production with lyrics that cut deep.

The album opens with “Make It Look Easy,” an introduction that immediately establishes its provocative emotional core. The track begins with a question — “Don’t you want someone to want you? / Don’t you want someone to know? / Don’t you want to be seen, be heard, understood? / Isn’t that the point?” — a quiet thesis that echoes throughout the record. Themes of self-knowledge, emotional honesty, and the courage to stand alone when necessary are motifs, framing solitude as a path toward understanding rather than defeat.

That sentiment resurfaces in lines like, “Rather find it alone than / Than in someone’s heart that, that I don’t know” and “I hope you find peace in knowing / That sometimes the only things meant to last forever / Are the memories we have together.” There is an aching confidence in these moments, lonely but resolute, that captures the painful inevitability of self-awareness and the difficulty in being honest with ourselves. As the album later admits, “Know it’s easy to feel alone / When it’s hard to reach out,” a reminder that vulnerability and isolation often coexist.

Rosa has described the album as an exploration of “unconditional empathy, loyalty, honesty, and respect,” emphasizing the small, everyday gestures that sustain meaningful relationships. That ethos permeates the album, which ultimately frames love — romantic or otherwise — as a conscious, ongoing choice. “Above all, it’s about honoring the rare gift of finding each other, souls colliding on a spinning rock in space, and choosing, every day, to love.”

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