I’ve stayed too long before. Past every warning sign, past the point where my friends stopped asking if I was okay and started just shaking their heads. Something about the burn felt right. Familiar. I wanted it even when I knew better. Kyle Waves gets that specific brand of self-destruction. His new track “Restart Love” lives in that space where you know you’re fucking up but your body won’t quit. You’ll find yourself dancing through it.
Kyle’s been riding his Signals EP era hard, and “Restart Love” keeps that energy rolling. The NYC queer pop artist makes synth-pop that feels massive in a club but somehow intimate when it’s just you and your headphones at 2am. You hear Lexie Liu’s experimental streak in there, Troye Sivan’s raw emotion, the infectious hooks NewJeans perfected, Tinashe’s sex appeal. He takes all of it and makes something that grinds.
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“Saying all the words / But they make no sense / Hearing all the sounds / But not listening.” Fuck, I’ve had that fight. You’re both talking. Mouths moving. Nothing landing. Kyle nails it—when he sings “I hate it when you speak so loud” but also “I hate it cuz you make me melt,” that contradiction is everything. Someone makes you furious and weak at the same time.
He’d rather be fucking than fighting. We all would. But somehow it always becomes both. “I don’t wanna argue / But that’s all we do / Rather be up on you / Like we used to do.” Then he admits the quiet part: “But the problem is / We’re into it.” We won’t say it out loud, but some part of us likes the chaos. Kyle’s saying it for us.
The chorus drops and it’s heavy. “Don’t rewind the clock on us / I don’t wanna restart love.” There’s this acceptance that some things are broken past repair. Maybe they should be fixed. They won’t be. Then it turns physical—“Boy you leave me out of breath / Fight until we fall in bed.” The production swells right here, synthesizers building and building until something breaks. The fights become foreplay. Anger becomes fuel. I’ve been there. It’s a mess.
Kyle told the story behind it: “‘Restart Love’ is my toxic relationship anthem, of which I’ve definitely had a few.” He’s not alone. He wanted to explore “that side of toxicity where you keep coming back because maybe there’s something enjoyable in it.” Nobody says this part out loud. “It’s not healthy and it’s something worth avoiding,” he says, “but when you’re in it” – yeah. “It feels good.” Patterns that should break can feel too good to stop.
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The second verse gets deeper into the mess. “When you leave me lonely I get no sleep” and “I love it when you knock me down” right next to “I love it when you make me smile.” All those contradictions piling up. He’s calling out the other person too—“If you think it’s stupid / Why do you still try”—but then admitting “it hurts me too / When you act so cruel.” And still: “I’m all in on you.” Both people drowning. Neither one reaching for help because somehow the water feels good.
Kyle’s got over a decade of vocal and dance training behind him. You hear it in how he delivers these lyrics—powerful but vulnerable. His production makes you want to move even while you’re processing heavy shit. This Singapore-born artist has built something real. His music’s been on OutLoud Radio, charted multiple times on aBreak48, even inspired a play called “Going to the Top” at The Tampa International Fringe Festival. He’s carved out space for queer Asian voices to be loud, sexual, messy, complicated.
“Restart Love” gets what happens when your brain says leave but you stay. Logic versus body. The track doesn’t apologize for the contradiction. Doesn’t clean it up. Kyle made something honest about the mess. We’ve been there. We’ll probably be there again. At least now we have a song that gets it.
