Folks, stop whatever you're doing and run to grab this new one from The Belair Lip Bombs. Sounding a bit like Courtney Barnett covering The Pretenders (or vice versa), Again from the Australian outfit roars with promise. Each cut sounds like a single, and the whole record is one that is so insouciant and naturally energetic, that you're sort of wondering how you never had this band in your life until now.
"Don't Let Them Tell You (It's Fair)" cranks it up atop classic rock guitars and pounding drums, while "Again" centers the hook around Maisie Everett's impassioned vocals. There are moments here where she definitely sounds like Courtney Barnett, but many others where there's a weight and maturity in her roaring vocals that sets this band in its own class. "Back of My Hand", for example, is more measured. The yearning in Maisie's voice matches the twists and turns of the hook, and the overall effect is not entirely like a heavier version of some of what fellow Aussies The Beths have served up of late. "Hey You", a real highlight here, seems to blend so many of this band's obvious influences together in such a way that the results are very distinctive.
The Belair Lip Bombs are going to earn a lot of fans with this one. Just one play of this record ought to do it. Lead singer and guitarist Maisie Everett, guitarist Mike Bradvica, bassist Jimmy Droughton, and drummer Daniel "Dev" Devlin really deliver here. There's nothing wasted on Again and it's the sort of record that sort of breezes by and leaves a listener wanting a lot more. For now, I guess we're all going to have to simply play this new Belair Lip Bombs album a bunch of times, preferably with the speakers turned way, way up.
Again by The Belair Lip Bombs is out today via Third Man Records.
[Bridie Fitzgerald]