Album review: Hinds

Hinds - I Don't Run (Lucky Number)

IT says something about the confidence of Hinds, that they come up with a riff most indie bands would have killed for to built a song around, but which the Spanish quartet are content to use merely as an interlude.

It is certainly well placed, an ominous moment of punk/hardclore/sludge riffing, in the middle of possibly the best song on this album, 'Tester', a delightfully defiant put down of a cheating male (and of male double standards in general ). Then there is the closing track, a fascinating meeting point between Spanish folk music and indie, sung in Spanish and English, but sounding as if the recording device and band were in separate rooms.

I Don't Run finds the band's trademark jangly, loose, garage rock and fifties/sixties girl group pop beefier, stronger, than before, in terms of performance, songwriting, construction, and arrangement. Indeed, the opening four songs - 'The Club', 'Soberland', 'Linda' 'New For You' - are some of the finest indie guitar pop you will hear this year, with plenty of hooks, anthemic moments, and bittersweet melodies.

Towards the end things certainly end up sounding 'samey' with fewer stand-out moments, denting the album's overall quality. The band remain a work in progress then, but worth some investigation by any true indie fan.

 

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