Kevin Bronson on March 17th, 2020

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Pool Toys call themselves “a pop band for sad people,” a description that would be apt for a lot of artists who make fetching but melancholic alt-pop.

The quartet — singer-guitarist Morgan Ching, keyboardist Sean Leston, bassist Eric Jecklin and drummer Ryan Rael — formed when in Albuquerque when they were students at the University of New Mexico. As Great States, they released an album in 2016. Then in 2018, after a couple of West Coast tours that included being warmly welcomed in Los Angeles, they decided to change time zones and band names.

While juggling various day jobs, the foursome has been prepping their new EP, “You, Love.” It was engineered and produced by fellow New Mexico native Devon Corey. The first single “Bad Things,” recorded in a cabin in the New Mexico wilderness, juxtaposes Pool Toys’ two pools of emotions: It glides along on a syrupy melody, with Ching wistfully singing “You say ‘bad things beget bad things’” while a bed of industrial-lite electronic beats churns below. It’s subtle, but it works.

The quartet expects to to unveil a new single next month.

||| Stream: “Bad Things”