The indie rock superstar Sam Roberts and his band are back with their eighth studio album, released just yesterday! The first since the depths of Covid, I’m excited to check it out and see how he’s developed since then! Join me in taking a look!
The opening track gets right into the indie/blues rock with a great riff, soon following up with some great vocals over the top. It has a chilled out, bounce vibe to it, and is fun right from the get go. The harmonies in the choruses add another fun layer to it all and make it even catchier. It’s a simple yet awesome track, and a fantastic way to open the album!
‘I Dream of You’ opens a little slower, the bending guitar notes reminding me a little more of punk than anything else. However, it’s still distinctly indie, having a modern US sound to it this time, akin to Hozier or The Lumineers. The first half is a fantastic slow-build, adding more and more emphasis with every passing part, the vocals doing a great job at slowly adding power too. It’s another great, chilled out track, and one that easily makes our playlist!
‘Projection’ is another steady, acoustic-tinged indie number. A simple, rather beautiful verse leads to a bigger, hugely catchy chorus. It’s one of my favourite on the album and I can see it filling out anything from small, dark, dingy bars to massive arenas around the world. It is all so simple yet so very effective. It’s the most recent single off the album and has all the tools to be massive on mainstream radio stations. Another huge highlight of the album and another to make the playlist.
The pace slows with ‘Cascades’, it being a piano lead number. Still, the almost surfer-rock effect on the guitar in the back works perfectly, somehow still keeping a slightly upbeat feel to it all. It once again builds into a fantastic, this time mostly-instrumental chorus. The strings come in and add another beautiful layer to it all. It makes it all feel that little bit more epic, and honestly it all feels huge. It’s a truly beautiful, emotion-filled song, and the third in a row to make the playlist. I have to see this live. Wow, what a track!
Singles ‘Picture of Love’ and ‘Afterlife’ are two more great, chilled out tracks. However, I have to admit it was at this point I was starting to feel it a little. As much as I’m enjoying the tracks, I’m typically not the biggest indie fan in the world, and listening to an album straight through, front to back, and analysing it in depth, I started to get a tad bored. The latter track at least had elements of funk to it, or at least the darker, slower RHCPs stuff. However, I was starting to really strain my attention span at this point. I really enjoyed the two songs and would happily listen to them again if they came on, but finding things to talk about with them when a lot of the album is very similar is becoming rather difficult!
Pretty much the same could be said for the final three tracks on the album. ‘Everybody Needs Love’ is a very stripped back acoustic number similar to ‘Cascades’. Meanwhile ‘Bad Country’ has a slightly more country/rock feel to it. And the closing track is another slow build to an epic indie chorus. All three are good tracks, but outside of the middle one none particularly stand out from the others on the album enough for me to dive into. Having said that, that HUGE chorus around the two minute mark of ‘If Only’ is amazing, and should have been the closing part of the track. It was massive and epic and the final chorus doesn’t quite go as hard as that does.
Overall: This is a damn fun album. As stated before, I’m not the hugest fan of indie music, but I really enjoyed this. Every track was great and it’s the perfect music to throw on and chill out to. There were fun tracks and songs filled with emotion, and the album was pieced together masterfully. If you are into this sort of sound, you’ll love this.
The score: 8/10