The Cords

I’ve said it before, but Slumberland has been on a tear this year, bringing a bounty of new voices to the indie pop plate. The latest is the debut from The Cords. The Scottish sibling duo dips into the most effervescent influences from the past, burrowing into the bright-eyed pop of The Primitives, the austerity of The Flatmates, and the sweet n’ sour bite of Shop Assistants. It’s clear that the band has spent at least a little time rifling through the classics for some inspiration, but like The Viivian Girls before them, any attempts to pin them down often reveal more about the listener than the band itself. At its heart, the eponymous album from The Cords is built on a bedrock of love, doubt, disappointment, infatuation, and angst. Like the best pop records, it’s not reverence that drives it’s desires, but rather the boundless capacity to experience the world through fresh eyes.

Jostled by jangles and hung on the kind of harmonies that only siblings seem capable of creating, the songs on the duo’s eponymous LP bend bittersweet sighs into indelible hooks; the kind that careen around corners in the backseat of a friends car and soak up the sobs from tear stained pillows. It’s an album full of exhilarating highs and crushing lows, though even the most melancholy moments are still buoyed by enough sweetness that they’ll put a smile on your sour mug. Indie pop aficionados are gonna grab this after the first sugar snap of strums, but The Cords are fun for the whole fam. It’s an instant classic.

Support the artist. Buy it HERE.