The Regrettes
How Do You Love?
Release Date: Aug 9, 2019
Genre(s): Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock
Record label: Warner Records
Music Critic Score
How the Music Critic Score works
Buy How Do You Love? from Amazon
Album Review: How Do You Love? by The Regrettes
Very Good, Based on 6 Critics
Based on rating 8/10
Take the title of the Regrettes' second album as something of a promise. How Do You Love? finds the band -- or, perhaps more specifically, its leader Lydia Night -- exploring the ramifications of the titular question. It's a bit of an autobiographical quandary for Night, who fell madly and deeply in love sometime after the 2017 release of Feel Your Feelings Fool! The relationship didn't survive, but it inspired the song cycle of How Do You Love?, which traces the rise and fall of Night's first great romance.
Based on rating 8/10
The Regrettes have never had trouble sounding twice their age, in terms of lyric writing and musical chops. This fact is more true than ever on their second LP, as the L.A. band of teens outdo themselves in every way on How Do You Love? At the top of the record are the incredible "California Friends" and "I Dare You," an absolute power couple of pop punk. The former is peak Regrettes, while the latter feels something like a hidden B-side from the first Strokes album. This influence wasn't present on their first album, Feel Your ….
Based on rating 7.5/10
Los Angeles garage pop band The Regrettes are back with an album even more raucous than before. Following a recent sold-out European tour, where they supported Twenty One Pilots, and a captivating performance at Reading and Leeds Festival, The Regrettes have now gifted us Christmas four months early. With their sophomore album How Do You Love?, the empowering quartet have crafted a 15-track release which exceeds expectations.
Based on rating 3/5
The Regrettes’ second full-length is all about finding the bright side of a broken heart. Following a spoken word intro examining what love is, ‘California Love’ enters with vibrant guitars and fun lyrics, marking itself as the perfect summer road-trip track, bringing a no-big-deal coolness to pop-punk chords and gang vocals. The airy summer vibes continue with ‘I Dare You’ - a song with such buoyancy it sounds like it was written in one easy breezy writing session.
Based on rating 3/5
The Los Angeles band boasts a knack for propulsive, playful garage-rock and witty turns of phrase, though the formula wear a little thin over the course of 15 tracks "Are you in love?" asks Lydia Night on the opening moments of The Regrettes' second album. "Do you feel it in your stomach? Does it twist and turn and scream and burn, and start to make you cry, but you like it?" It's the lone moment of quiet reflection before a fast-paced succession of rock'n'roll numbers dissect the giddiness of falling hard, along with the ensuing fallout when harsh reality grabs a needle and punctures the endorphin-bubble. READ MORE: Meet The Regrettes, the LA punks who opened last year’s Reading & Leeds Two years after the release of their debut album, ' Feel Your Feelings Fool!' , The Regrettes' original drummer and bassist both decided to leave the band (albeit amicably) in rapid succession.
Opinion: Excellent
The Lowdown: Vulnerability comes with being human. We block and delete instead of confronting what's really wrong and parade through the public eye in a constant state of being "fine," regardless of how distant that may be from reality. "Normal" has become synonymous with stoic and unaffected, but The Regrettes are leading the charge in rewriting this cultural script.
'How Do You Love?'
is available now