Someone To Drive You Home

The Long Blondes turned kitchen-sink drama into pop, casting Kate Jackson as the older woman, the femme fatale, the woman watching a younger rival with narrowed eyes.

"Once & Never Again" is a pep talk to a nineteen-year-old delivered with something close to envy, and that unease is what separates the band from its post-punk revival peers — the words know too much for the age of the singer. Dorian Cox writes guitar lines that scissor and jangle at once, and "Giddy Stratospheres" rides them into pure adrenaline while the lyric stays cold-eyed about ambition. The whole record works this seam between the thrill of a great chorus and the sourness of what it's actually saying. Few debuts sound this glamorous while trusting you to notice the resentment underneath.