Published by Mason Oldridge, 24 September 2024
The indie rockers are back with their fourth studio album.
Smitten is said to be influenced by lead singer Heather Baron-Gracie’s teenage diary and touch upon the themes of mixed emotions experienced during early relationships.
Indie music bordering between rock and pop, the coherent sound throughout the album is dreamy, almost like a new age version of The Pretenders, the main difference being the clean production heard on this record.
Unfortunately, there is little variation between tracks, at least sonically. Lead single Perfume has a slightly catchier hook than the others but surpassing all the singles as the standout is Kiss Me Again, mainly because it is the most memorable. No more than one track should’ve made the final cut however, due to the glaring similarities to each other. This disappointingly reduces the songs to mere background music.
The band clearly have talent but need to branch out with their instrumentation to create an array of different sounds in order to produce a complete sounding album.
5/10