Blossoms are a 5 piece indie band from Stockport who smashed their way into our hearts with their storming self titled debut which contained numerous indie hits including Charlemagne, Honey Sweet and Blow. After an extensive touring schedule the boys disappeared, with many of us believing they were working on their second outing. But then a “leaked” video of the drummer stating the disharmony between himself and lead singer, Tom Ogden, came out and whilst it seemed as though they were splitting up, it quickly became obvious that they were in fact just doing a PR stunt. Still not quite sure why they felt the need to do that, but they did it nonetheless.
After that they announced ‘Cool Like You’ and released the big single “I Can’t Stand It” which was a huge success, it received much acclaim from their fans and signalled progression for the band as they utilised synths to introduce an electronic aspect to their music. Something I was very happy to see.
However, this album as a whole doesn’t feel like a step forward. It’s more of a step sideways. I found a lot of the songs hark back to the same sounds as the first album. For example, “Cool Like You” has the same sounding guitars as “Blown Rose”, even the way that the song progresses sounds the same. And “Unfaithful” sounds like “Texia” – literally play the first 15 seconds of each one next to each other. It’s crazy. Is this a bad thing? Well, in terms of seeing them become the band we all hoped they’d be, yes it is. But in terms of enjoying their music it probably isn’t. I was just hoping for more creativity on this album and it seems so devoid of it.
“There’s A Reason Why (I Never Returned You Calls)” was the second single from the album, and it was clear from this point that I wasn’t going to love this album in the same way I loved the first one. It’s a good song, don’t get me wrong, it’s just the epitome of all the points I just said. However, I still had a good time listening to this album, I didn’t hate it and there was the odd song I enjoyed A LOT. I loved Tom Ogden’s vocals as well. I feel like they’ve really come on a lot since the first album and that was something I enjoyed. Also, the clear influences of the ‘80s was very enjoyable too. It was just disappointing, and that’s always the worst thing to feel from an album.
6/10