Jane Remover and underscores: both young, both producing music since they were even younger and both pioneers in the hyperpop landscape. With the release of their respective debut albums in 2021, underscores and Jane Remover immediately cemented themselves as the premier artists to watch in the growing landscape of hyperpop, showing immense creative potential with each project.

Over the course of an hour, Jane Remover’s “Frailty” plays with mellow strings, whiny synths, crushing walls of noise, bumping dance riffs and distorted guitars. While hyperpop as a genre is known for being hard to pin down, “Frailty” took this definition to new lengths, blending notes of dance, rock, shoegaze and more across 13 songs.

The first five songs in the track list wonderfully display this quality, through the solemn guitars of “goldfish,” the refined hyperpop sounds of “your clothes,” the undeniable dance floor killer “misplace,” the indie rock tones of “pretender” and the crushing electric guitars of “search party.” It all makes for a delightful smorgasbord of a sonic experience. Lyrically, the album is more refined than most of the genre’s contemporaries, which were best known for playful internet slang and deeply unserious, hilarious song topics.

Coming in at nearly half the runtime of “Frailty,” underscores’ debut “fishmonger” made a dent of its own in the genre just seven months prior. In a similar fashion to Remover, “fishmonger” contains hints of punk, indie pop, rock and a refined palette of sounds which were common within hyperpop back in 2021.

On tracks like “Bozo bozo bozo” and “Del mar county fair 2008,” underscores traded genre keystones like a standard verse/chorus format or a beat drop for a more creatively-enticing and significantly more unique formula. Others such as “Second hand embarrassment” and “Kinko’s field trip 2006” feature pounding guitar passages, making for some of the most shining moments on the album.

Since the release of these projects, underscores has released a recent full-length album, “Wallsocket.” Assembled with fewer hyperpop hallmarks, the album opts for more guitar grooves, thick riffs and massive shoegaze-esque wall of sound climaxes. It even features the first long-awaited collaboration between the two artists: “Uncanny long arms.”

Remover has released five singles, two of which are taken directly from her upcoming album, “Census Designated,” which will also feature extended versions of two other singles. Of these singles, two take a strong turn toward shoegaze, featuring fat walls of guitar and drum layers. Another takes the form of a somber drone track, though none of them feature the typical electronic sounds of her previous work.

Though the two artists helped to define hyperpop, their step away from the typical sounds of the genre feels more personal than simply rejecting the current state of the genre. Given the lyrical content of both artists’ work, it seems the pioneers have found the means to better translate their vision into sonic art. While hyperpop will surely miss two of its most important artists, their recent output promises fans that there is more fantastic art on the way.

“Wallsocket” is currently available for streaming, and “Census Designated” will release this Friday, Oct. 20.

Andrew C. Freeman can be reached at [email protected].