Album Review: Running with the Hurricane by Camp Cope

Whereas 2018's How to Socialise & Make Friends showed McDonald focusing largely on issues with the external world, including patriarchal norms, Hurricane features McDonald evaluating and at times overhauling her own attitudes, habits, and relational tendencies. On opener "Caroline", for example, she assumes an expansive posture, pondering unconditional love ("I know there is love / that doesn't have to do / anything that you don't want it to do"), her eruptive guitar spilling over Sarah Thompson's sultry drums and Kelly-Dawn Hellmrich's rolling bass. A well-stoked tension resolves cathartically with the hyper-hook-y chorus.

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Melbourne trio Camp Cope made their names on feverish indie rock, exploring melancholy and anger in equal measure, but they've also already begun pushing at those boundaries. Frontwoman Georgia Maq followed their 2018 breakthrough with a solo record of shimmering synth pop, and the band's latest evolution shares that same wistful core. Whereas their previous record opened with acerbic lyricism and screams, Running With the Hurricane opens with "Caroline," a softly thrumming ballad featuring gently swelling melodies and starry-eyed lyrical gems.

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The main takeaway from Camp Cope's widely praised sophomore album was the Melbourne trio's biting commentary on the role of women in the music industry. In particular, "The Opener," the punnily titled first song on 2018's How to Socialise & Make Friends, leapt out of the speakers and made clear the band's intentions to push back against an environment that viewed groups like theirs as rarely more than a supporting act. It was a record that seethed with anger over the many faces of misogyny in music, but also displayed an emotional range that gave it depth and complexity.

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