Phoebe Green - The Container

There’s something refreshingly carefree about ‘The Container’. Less the sound itself - here, Phoebe Green presents her diaristic bedroom pop in the kind of darkly glittering hues of Chvrches’ early material, as ‘80s inspired synths shimmer above understated, melancholic yet quietly infectious songs – but in offering another short, sharp burst of trying on for size following last year’s ‘Ask Me Now’, there’s no suggestion that anything here is definitive, no presumed thread for what comes after to follow. The standouts here are ‘Precious Things’, where the playfulness of an Olivia Rodrigo-like speaking delivery meets hints of industrial sounds to gleeful effect and ‘What Are You Doing’, a subtle earworm, which hints at Phoebe’s home city’s forebears, as new wave synth sounds take an ominous turn alongside one-woman call-and-response vocals.