Courting ‘New Last Name’ – Review

There’s some kind of concept to Courting’s sophomore album ‘New Last Name.’ It’s a nine part, ‘theatrical’ story told out of sequence and from different perspectives. Something about a wedding, 2009, lost love and moving to America. I don’t know, it’s hard to follow. I read the recent Stereogum profile where they explained the plot at some length and finished feeling even more confused. The idea speaks to Courting’s unrefined ambition and willingness to think a little outside the box. Those traits manifested into something quite grating on their hyperactive debut ‘Guitar Music.’ This time around, they’re able to focus their energies into something relatively concise and cohesive – if a little bonkers. ‘New Last Name’ is a fantastic levelling up.

Courting cite Frank Ocean and Hyper-pop as influences but in truth they are a throwback to the indie-rock of the early 2010’s. Their energetic, effervescent sound reminds me of Catfish and the Bottlemen, Circa Waves and Sports Team. But they also show an irreverent streak on sophomore album ‘New Last Name’, so it’s no surprise that they mostly get compared to The 1975. That feels a little lazy to me; sure, they share a collaborator in DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ, and, to be fair, ‘We Look Good Together’ is an absolute dead ringer for something like ‘The Sound’ or ‘Happiness’ but Courting don’t strike me as being too indebted to Healey and Co. If anything their inspirations can be traced back much further. 

‘The Wedding’, a wonderfully catchy description of an unbalanced relationship,  bears the hallmark of its producers – Gary and Ryan Jarman of The Cribs. The chiming guitars and effortless melody elevate it about anything from ‘Guitar Music.’ Meanwhile, ‘Emily G’, which has a strikingly sharp chorus, has to be nodding to Mid-00s Indie Disco classic ‘Emily Kane’; from the name to the subject matter, right down to a spoken word section, the song smacks of Art Brut. Another highlight is the slightly more audacious closer, ‘America’, which references energy shields, Celine Dion and Amazon Prime across six minutes of increasingly crunchy indie-rock.

If all of this sounds very inter-textual then that’s partly the point. Courting are a very modern group; they think nothing of matching auto-tuned vocals with Fall Out Boy pop-punk. They make jokes about being verified. They’ve set up social media accounts for a fake band to help promote this album. They’re a lot, and they know it. But across nine bright and exuberant tracks, Courting have too much fun for it not to be infectious. 

8.5/10

The Vaccines ‘Pick up Truck Full of Pink Carnations’ – Review

Let’s talk for a minute about ‘Blow It Up’, The Vaccines debut single released in a fog of mystery and excitement back in 2010. The song was hyped at a time when hype felt like the gift of music journalists rather than social media algorithms. The song itself was an indie-pop nugget coated in grime. The dirty squall of feedback and vivid reverb put it in line with the wave of Lo-Fi guitar pop that was popular that year (Girls, Best Coast, Surfer Blood, Wavves) but the sharp hooks and sky-scraping melody felt more ambitious. The despondent lyricism spoke to a romantically rebellious impulse that seems almost cute in retrospect. ‘Degenerates look better In leather.’ Indeed. The Vaccines were arguably the last in a lineage, dating back as far as The Smiths; of handsome, well dressed men with guitars that NME convinced us could change the world.

‘Blow It Up’ was not the generational anthem that we briefly thought it might be but it was undeniably two minutes of riotously fun noise. We all know, however, that a great debut does not a career make, and The Vaccines ultimately couldn’t stick the landing. Like a Ferrari stripped of its parts, the group are still going and inadvisably making sharp turns without the contributions of founding members Freddie Cowan and Pete Robertson. 

Sixth album ‘Pick Up Truck Full of Pink Carnations’ is bad, but it’s not the kind of bad that’s arrived at as a consequence of misguided ambition or even undercooked execution. Nor is it the kind of bad that’s captivating; a burning wreckage on the side of the road or a hopeless politician flailing under an interviewer’s scrutiny. Rather it’s the kind of bad that is so omnipresent in our culture that it usually goes unremarked upon. It’s flat-pack furniture. It’s a Marvel sequel. It’s Burger King. It’s the kind of bad that has made us complacent. 

‘Pick up Truck…’ is exactingly made and meticulously polished. There are more shining surfaces here than on a space ship. The songs are smartly structured and full of AI generated choruses that feel catchy without ever really being memorable. The bright chords and Focus-Grouped predictability of opener ‘Sometimes I Swear’ sets the mood for a record that sees ‘it’s fine’ as aspirational. It’s all the more disappointing because – to paraphrase the title of their brilliant debt – I would once have expected more from The Vaccines.

The record was written and recorded in Hollywood and that’s very apparent. The lyrics are anonymous to a fault. Any hack could have written these bland, Indistinct dispatches from the shallows of mundanity. Young has always been a suspect writer but his lyrics were always informed by an ill advised tendency to over-share. 2012’s ‘Come of Age’ boarded on the self-flagilating with choruses telling us that he had ‘no hope’, was a ‘weirdo’ and ‘no teenage icon.’ That sort of confessional conviction, however badly judged, is sorely lacking here. It’s hard to think about the record’s themes because Young manages to say so little, despite saying so much. Questions are asked (‘Is this what you wanted?’) solutions are pondered (‘maybe we should keep dancing’) and words are definitely used (‘there is gold in the mouth of the silvery sky / with a head full of ice and a drink in its eye’) but it’s difficult to say what it all adds up to. There is a moment on ‘Sometimes I Swear’ which feels self aware: ‘Your best work’s behind you, still you hate looking weak.’ The Vaccines carry on because it’s the only thing better than not carrying on.

You could play ‘Pick-up Truck’ in the background at a party and get no massive complaints. Nothing pokes or prods and nothing dares to be controversial. At the risk of damming it with faint praise, I would at least say that it is an improvement on the synth and sunset sounds of its predecessor, 2021’s ‘Back in Love City’. But even that is simply a consequence of taking fewer risks in a climate of increasingly lowered expectations. I suppose that the bottom reaches of festival billings don’t book themselves and the familiarity that The Vaccines provide ensures they’ll never be far from promoters thoughts. Certainly the Parental Guidance Rock music of ‘Pick Up Full of Carnations’ won’t upset the early afternoon crowds at Lattitude or Y Not this Summer. But it’s the hope that kills you. I’m left thinking about a line from 2012’s ‘Bad Mood’ – “You look disappointed in me/ am I not as thoughtful as you thought I’d be?’ Got it in one Justin.

4/10