So I’m getting ready for a night out, standing in my bathroom in a black slip dress with a glass of wine I’ve already refilled twice, and ‘Red Lace’ comes on. I stop doing my mascara. I just stand there. Andrew Leonforte’s voice comes through the speaker and suddenly I’m not going anywhere because this song is pulling me into something and I want to stay in it. That pulsing beat, those sultry vocals, the whole dark R&B atmosphere of it doing things to my brain that should probably be illegal. The Bronx gave us something good with this one.
The production on ‘Red Lace’ is cinematic as hell. There’s this steady pulsing beat underneath everything that keeps you locked in like your heartbeat just decided to sync up without asking permission. Andrew layers moody textures over it and the whole thing feels weirdly intimate like he’s singing directly to you. The quiet intensity is what gets you. There’s no big dramatic moment where it explodes because it doesn’t need one. The restraint IS the seduction. Every pause, every breath, every beat of silence is doing work.
Andrew’s vocals are giving something genuinely provocative and he’s doing it without screaming about it. He’s 27 out of the Bronx and his debut single ‘You and I’ already racked up 20K Instagram views and people are comparing him to Shawn Mendes, Justin Bieber, Charlie Puth, Nick Jonas, and LAUV. What’s wild is that ‘Red Lace’ sounds like he took all of those references and burned them down to find something darker underneath. The lyricism here is provocative in that way where he’s saying everything without saying anything directly. You hear it and you feel it in places that have nothing to do with your ears.
The whole song is about desire and the tension of holding back and honestly? That’s the energy of every good night that ever started with one drink and ended somewhere you didn’t plan. The way ‘Red Lace’ builds and breathes, the push and pull of wanting something and making it wait, that’s not music criticism, that’s just what this song physically does to your body. I would absolutely make terrible decisions to this track and I’m not the least bit sorry about it. That’s the whole damn point.
Andrew Leonforte is clearly building something with a very specific vision and ‘Red Lace’ is proof he knows exactly what he’s doing. Play it in a dark room and make your own story. That’s what it’s built for.
