LAUNDRY DAY - We Switched Bodies

Up-and-coming New York popsters LAUNDRY DAY, still fresh from high school, can already vaunt an impressive resume. Tour dates with Clairo and The 1975 fulfilled, three albums already in the can, the deliverance of their fourth full-length ‘We Switched Bodies’ raises their stock yet higher still. Recorded with Brockhampton’s Kevin Abstract and Romil Hemnani alongside veteran rock producer Brendan O’Brien (Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam), this major-label debut more than satisfies its blockbuster credentials. Opener ‘How Did You Sleep?’ demonstrates the group’s constellation-gaze perfectly: stealing in with sugary finger-plucked strains, glowing harmonies layer up, the mandate is given - “Tonight, I can do whatever I want” - and the song catapults into coruscating guitar wrangles rending technicoloured holes in its very fabric. It’s an apt, neon-kissed marker for what’s to follow: a button-tight record of sumptuous pop for 2022. There’s no click, tick or shimmer, no texture or transition that hasn’t been scrupulously laboured over with the finest of toothed combs. While twinkling starlit balladry remains the order of the day for much of the set - ‘Don’t Blow Yourself Up’ or ‘ Listen To Me When I Say’ will doubtlessly summon teary seas of waving lighters in years to come - it’s those finer details - the pixelated hip hop fantasia that introduces ‘Blübe’, or the jabbering acoustic ramshackles of ‘Little Bird’, which inject those chef’s kisses. Nutrient-abounding like an algae-green smoothie, ‘We Switched Bodies’ is fresh, is hot, is now.