Thomas Headon - Victoria EP

Indie pop isn’t an easy trick to pull. Play it too leftfield, and you’ll restrict yourself to an audience that deems itself too cool to give you the time of day. Go too far the other way, and an artist can easily fall between the cracks - not enough big business budget to reach the mainstream masses, not enough salted sugar to find an audience willing to seek out something new off their own back.

Some people make the difficult look simple, though. Step forward, Thomas Headon. Fast pushing through the pack of main alt-pop boys, his new EP ‘Victoria’ is a textbook lesson in how to play the game to perfection. Catchy, immediate and packed with joyful abandon, its youthful exuberance spills out of the edges while never once losing the run of itself along the way.

From sofa-themed megabop ‘Nobody Has To Know’ to the swoony summer’s day of ‘Strawberry Kisses’, Headon knows how to write a hit. Title-track ‘Victoria’ has the smoky neon glow of early days The 1975, while the slow strum of torch song ‘The Most Beautiful Thing’ tugs at the heartstrings. Each track pulls a different vibe, each does it brilliantly.

The competition best start taking lessons - Thomas Headon is starting to run away with the game.