Courting’s art-rock has never stuck around in one place long enough to be concerned with heading a genre, but it’s always been informed by the direction of modern pop: where debut ‘Guitar Music’ introduced the Liverpool-based four-piece as avant-garde, industrial electronic-rock connoisseurs, sophomore record ‘New Last Name’ ditched this USP, instead diving head first into hyperpop-tinged alt-pop. This confounding genre-blurring and tendency for whiplashing genre-hopping is nothing short of auteurship and, frankly, a deft pen for a tune.
But on their third, the mouthful ‘Lust For Life, Or: How To Thread The Needle And Come Out The Other Side To Tell The Story’, Courting return with a ready-made indie classic far headier and confluent than anything put out so far. Made with “less overthinking” and far more immediacy, so says press material, the record sees Courting’s sound intuitively draw its own path: naturally dropping colourful alt-pop and turning to indulgent Kasabian-indebted electronica, pub rock and proto-punk.
Introducing their third record, vocalist Sean Murphy-O’Neill shouts over ‘Stealth Rollback’, “It’s ‘Lust For Life’! / Live in stereo!”, capturing a very specific Oasis-era Britpop aesthetic. Obvious mimicry of straightforward rock-pop (‘Namcy’) stands alongside bigger cuts (‘After You’) as ready-made, beer-sloshing, indie festival anthems. Modern alt-pop does worm its way back in, too: see the filthy indie sleaze-affected proto-punk of ‘Pause at You’ or the melancholic, jazz-tinged shoegaze of ‘Eleven Sent (This Time)’.
But these references come sandwiched between some of the band’s gutsiest ideas since their debut, where self-effacing experiments reaffirm their malleability and vision. The aforementioned behemoth ‘Stealth Rollback’ is a song in reverse: opening with an industrial hyperpop outro, it dissolves into a haunting folk horror horn ridden by trance-y keys, followed by a dry indie rock intro.
Later, its mammoth title track conjures the acoustic hyperpop experimentalism of A. G. Cook before a sun-drenched outro closes the show. And the solemn strings of its opener ‘Rollback Intro’ make an electric return on scuzzy punk rock encore ‘Likely Place For Them To Be’, making an ouroboros style record that proves the intricate, considered and brazen artistry of the foursome is worthy of far more acclaim – or even notoriety – than their cult following suggests.
Ultimately, the settling of ‘Lust For Life…’ in this raucous, raw, indier sensibility is no less changeable than their last diversion, but there’s an air they’ve found their sweet spot and the group is indulging in the moment. As slippery and unpredictable as ever, this Courting record is indie music for pop fans and pop music for indie fans – there’s enough for everyone to take a bite.
