Some songs whisper sweet nothings. Others blow the whole house to pieces. Brent de la Cruz‘s “Smithereens” is the latter—but somehow does it in a velvet voice, with dreamy guitars and the kind of riff that claws back into your brain hours after the music stops.
Coming off a years-long hiatus spent sharpening his sonic edges, Brent returns sounding both more polished and more dangerous. There’s this quiet intensity in “Smithereens” that doesn’t shout, but it doesn’t need to. The track opens with that sticky, elastic guitar line—almost like something you’d catch looping in the back of a ’90s skater video, if the skater had a lot of feelings and unresolved grudges. The beat stays chill, but there’s a tension running underneath that keeps you wide awake.
Lyrically, it’s like eavesdropping on a confrontation someone’s been rehearsing in their head for weeks. “Tell me ’bout the people / Whose house you blew to smithereens last week…” Brent sings, more curious than angry, but the destruction feels personal. It’s alt-pop with a knife behind its back—sparse in delivery but loaded with meaning. It reminds me of Jean Dawson’s cryptic swagger meets Post Malone’s laid-back catchiness, with a dash of Empire of the Sun’s wide-eyed surrealism thrown in for colour.
Visually and sonically, this all builds toward his upcoming EP, “BLANC“—the light-soaked follow-up to the shadowy “NOIR“. And just like its title suggests, “Smithereens” feels like an explosion in slow motion: beautiful, disorienting, and quietly wrecking. It’s made for those nights when you’re feeling everything at once but don’t want to talk about it. Or maybe just want to skate it off.
About Brent de la Cruz:
Hailing from San Diego and raised on the soundtracks of street skating and midnight musings, Brent de la Cruz doesn’t just make music—he builds worlds. After quietly racking up millions of streams and landing on top editorial playlists (without a label or even a music video), Brent took a step back. What came next was several years of recalibration, moving from instinct to intent. Now based in LA and collaborating with visual artist Tyler Eastlick, he’s crafting a multi-sensory narrative that spans music, film, and everything in between. His work walks a tightrope between cinematic tension and bedroom vulnerability—always curious, always unpredictable.
Follow Brent de la Cruz: