Featuring vocalist-guitarist Caroline Landahl, guitarist Måns Leonartsson, bassist Frederick Rundquist, and drummer Rasmus Andersson, Malmö, Sweden’s Hater have been blending shoegaze and indie pop for roughly half a decade, cutting a handful of EPs, and with the release of Sincere on May 6 through Fire Records of the UK, three full-lengths. Across the nine tracks heard on their latest, the band’s attack remains cohesive and vibrant, avoiding both genericism and overly slick textures. While they are unlikely to win (m)any accolades for originality, Hater do an admirable job of reinforcing their worthiness in relation to their chosen styles.
Sincere gets off to a strong start with “Something,” which delivers a fine balance of heft, hazy edge, and melodicism further enhanced with the singing of Landahl, who strikes her own equilibrium between prettiness and the forceful. To describe it as brandishing a particularly late-’80s-’90s kinda sound is hitting some nails squarely on their heads, but it’s necessary to note that Hater maintain a sense of energy and involvement throughout, their urgency elevating the record and helping to counteract the occasional flirtation with a Clinton-era Alt-rock sensibility.
Second track “I’m Yours Baby” is one such example, though said similarity is fairly restrained, and to the point where it’s ambiguous just how deliberately cultivated a maneuver it is on the band’s part. The bottom line: if the song had come out in the ’90s, I would’ve dug it, especially the burst of guitar racket as the end nears.
The echo-laden chime-pop of “Bad Luck” is a nice shift, but with the drums hitting hard and strengthening a unified approach. To elaborate, the crisp throb of the rhythm section in the following track “Proven Wrong” is one of the album’s overall highlights. Another plus is how the choruses soar with Landahl’s voice leading the way.
It’s “Brave Blood” that really hones the aforementioned shoegaze-indie pop merger, coming off like an A-side of a mid-’90s 45 issued by Slumberland, SpinART, or hell, even Creation or 4AD. And while Landahl engages with the ethereal throughout Sincere, in this song she really commits. And next is another major redirect, with “Far From a Mind” an up-tempo bass heavy rocker that conjures visions of side-stages during sweaty outdoor festivals.
And then right on time comes “Summer Turns to Heartburn,” another standout track that’s back half is loaded with more raucous guitar layering, and with a nice and slow left-field fadeout capping it off as the album hits the home stretch. Kicking back into gear, “Renew, Reject” doesn’t falter in its sturdiness and with more surging choruses. There is a bit of an Alt-rock upswing, but again, it’s wielded with a sense of control so that no hackneyed moves foul the air.
“Hopes High” closes the set in roughly the same ballpark, but with some unexpected (and welcome) synth secretions and additional low-end thickness. In the end, Sincere is nothing new under the sun, but there is enough freshness in Hater’s execution to assist the record in standing up to repeated listens. That’s what matters. Three album’s in and the band is evincing no sense of creative fatigue.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
B+
