girlpuppy - Sweetness

There’s a point during ‘Sweetness’, this second album from Atlanta’s girlpuppy – specifically, where the alt-country shuffle of ‘Beaches’ steps in to shift the mood – where it makes a decent argument to be the most archetypal of bedroom indie records. ‘I Just Do!’ kicks it off proper, pairing classic songwriting and Becca Harvey’s trademark feather-soft vocal with dreamy synth sounds and a guitar that’s tenderly distorted. It’s a combination that does prove potent: the contrast between the record’s one blistering riff and Becca’s deadpan delivery on ‘Since April’ is genuinely interesting, and ‘Champ’ bristles with the threat of frustration – never quite finding the emotion’s apex – using ‘90s slacker guitar sounds. ‘For You Two’ also packs a punch, its calculated turn at using a change in pace to elicit a lighters-in-the-air-moment somehow turns the accompanying refrain (“If I don’t say it out loud / It’s like it never happened”) inwards in a pleasantly surprising fashion. It’s unfortunate, then, that occasionally these stylistic devices turn the warmly familiar to forgettable, such as on ‘In My Eyes’. Similarly, ‘I Was Her Too’ floats away in its glum softness and the breezy whisper of ‘Window’ is wholly unremarkable. ‘Sweetness’ does a stellar job in using indie rock and bedroom pop styles to place itself within the existing canon - if it could only stand out a little more.