The title is the thesis. This is music built on adrenaline rather than rest, powered by the particular clarity that only sleep deprivation or obsessive focus can produce. The Israeli artist — a visual polymath who has spent years constructing an entire aesthetic universe largely by himself, reportedly responsible for over a hundred self-produced music videos — brings that same DIY precision to bear on the songwriting here. These are not songs assembled by committee. They carry the fingerprints of a single, highly specific mind.

"Laba" announces its intentions with the confidence of someone who knows they've written a banger and isn't going to be coy about it. It leans hard into intensity and attitude — the kind of track that sounds like it was recorded at a temperature several degrees above comfortable, the kind of heat that can't be manufactured by producers chasing trends. It simply is what it is, and what it is happens to be excellent.

The collaboration with Edri Cohen, "Tagidi Bye", stands as the album's centrepiece and probably its most immediately replayable moment. There's a chemistry between the two performers that recalls the best pop duets — not because they sound alike, but because they sound like they're genuinely listening to each other. Adir Colonna's production throughout the record is clean without being sterile, warm without being soft, and on "Tagidi Bye" in particular he finds a pocket and stays in it.

What Colonna's mastering work understands — and this is rarer than it should be — is that clarity is not the same thing as compression. The record breathes. Individual elements occupy distinct sonic spaces. When the hooks land, and they land repeatedly, they land with room around them.

Pop records are often judged by their weakest tracks. It is a revealing test, and *Lo Yashanti Tzohorayim* passes it with some ease, because there are no weak tracks. Eight songs, zero filler — that phrase appears in the press materials and, unusually, turns out to be accurate rather than aspirational. Every track earns its place. Not every track will earn the same level of attention, but that is the nature of sequence and proportion. The record moves like a well-paced short film rather than a director's cut nobody requested.

Abaday's writing is direct. Pointedly, deliberately, refreshingly direct. He does not appear to be interested in lyrical obscurity, and the absence of unnecessary complexity gives the hooks room to hit. Pop writing of this quality depends on that economy — the ability to say exactly what needs to be said and stop. It is a skill that sounds simple and is not.

The broader context is worth acknowledging. Israeli pop operates with relatively little coverage in the British press, which is partly a function of geography and language and partly a function of the music industry's lingering insularity. That insularity is its own loss. Records like this one — sharp, confident, built with genuine craft and a clear point of view — deserve to be heard beyond their immediate market. The fact that Abaday has constructed most of his artistic infrastructure independently makes the accomplishment more interesting, not less. This is not a record that required a major label. It required a major talent.

Twenty-two minutes. That is all. Put it on again.

*Lo Yashanti Tzohorayim is available now on Apple Music and YouTube via Colonna Records.*