Desperate Journalist
Grow Up
Release Date: Mar 24, 2017
Genre(s): Pop/Rock, Indie/Alternative, Indie Rock
Record label: Fierce Panda
Music Critic Score
How the Music Critic Score works
Buy Grow Up from Amazon
Album Review: Grow Up by Desperate Journalist
Excellent, Based on 3 Critics
Based on rating 8/10
As I stumble further into my thirties, it's increasingly infrequent that I fall in love with a new band. In the same way that you seem to stop acquiring friends after a certain age, I've apparently arrived at the point where I've got enough bands and records in my life. The younger me, a ravenous devourer of the bands ballyhooed on these pages ever since the days when they were predominantly blue, would, of course, be utterly horrified to read this kind of stuff trickling from my tired fingers.
Based on rating 4/5
If there's one emotion you're left with after listening to the London four-piece's follow-up to 2015's superb self-titled debut, it's joy. Even when Jo Bevan is uttering acidic putdowns, so exhilarated is she that had you been on the receiving end, you'd probably shake her hand and thank her for the insight. Bevan, her voice impassioned and far-ranging, sings like All About Eve warbler Julianne Regan after shredding her gypsy dresses in favour of a jet-pack, and Desperate Journalist are clearly enamoured of kohl-eyed 80s indie bands.
Opinion: Excellent
It's been slightly more than two years since Desperate Journalist's self-titled debut, and my haven't they grown. It's more of the same to be fair, though there's an assuredness on Grow Up that comes with experience; an indelible imprint of a band not only making their mark, but also asserting their identity. The songs feel bigger, better, more expansive and fresher, while their collective deportment has something of a swagger about it.
'Grow Up'
is available now