Doe - Grow Into It

On debut ‘Some Things Last Longer Than You’, London trio Doe proved themselves one of the country’s promising new rock bands. Chunky and melodic, it channelled Weezer in its huge, distortion-lathered choruses and buzzing youthfulness.

The album’s follow-up - ‘Grow Into It’ - marks a change for the band, though. Vocalist Nicola Leel talks about “[wanting] to write an album about getting older that was an antithesis of the overdone trope of male bands singing about rejecting adulthood and wanting to stay young and get wasted with their friends forever,” and the record manages to speak about growing up without unnecessarily battling against the loss of youth or - maybe even more importantly - making it sound dull.

“I’m tired, but you seem ok with that,” she sings on the great ‘Labour Like I Do’, and the record doesn’t romanticise the often confusing process of growing out of your youth - it just lays it out as it is, becoming all the more powerful because of its honesty.

Musically, ‘Grow Into It’ sees subtle but important changes to the band’s palette; the riffs are catchier, the heavy parts even more crushing, and the drum parts are wonderfully intricate. Nicola and drummer Jake Popyura’s vocals - as on ‘Some Things…’ - interweave wonderfully, verses of Nicola’s Scottish twang joined in fist pump-worthy choruses by Jake’s roar, backing each other all the way.

A second album that sees the trio keeping everything that made them so exciting in the first place, while also fully realising that you only make your first album once, ‘Grow Into It’ sees Doe growing up gracefully.