All We Are - Sunny Hills

Rating:

An unrelenting refusal to cow to expectation.

With their second album, All We Are are determined to be themselves. A multinational coalition (Norwegian, Brazilian and Irish, in case you were wondering) founded in a Liverpudlian melting pot, there’s a radical steel running up the backbone of ‘Sunny Hills’.

It’s not one that sees the three-piece pushing musical boundaries; instead, it’s an unrelenting refusal to cow to expectation. Produced by Kwes (Solange, Kano, Loyle Carner), they’ve taken the indie rock, post-punk template and toughened it up, ready to roll with the punches.

‘Human’, for example, is part Joy Division, part Savages. A biting but soaring statement, it’s both immediate and deep in the same breath. “I don’t even know what’s fake anymore,” Guro Gikling exasperates, hitting marks both current and timeless. The product of its surroundings, it’s a powerful statement. Switched on, charged up, if this really is All We Are, it’s more than enough. Stephen Ackroyd