The Skinny

The sound is raw and grinds with edgier and harder beats, perhaps signalling a new direction for the group’s versatile beatmaker, DJ Próvaí. .... A well put-together album, thanks in part to working alongside super-producer Dan Carey.

It's a decisive success from one of NYC’s most distinct exports – though its head may sometimes come before the beat, it is no doubt an impressive achievement.

By key change three, your tolerance for theatricality may be tested, but Friko’s affinity for arresting melodies makes every twist and turn genuinely exciting and, with its wild, youthful spirit, their second record is the perfect soundtrack for the open road.

Altogether, it has the faintly dispiriting sheen of something commissioned by its own success. Ware is deft enough that the album still plays best when it coalesces her 2010s crooner poise with the 2020s reassertion of her pop bona fides.

Where WU LYF once teetered on the cliff-edge, barking every utterance like they knew it might be their last, they're now sure-footed and comfortable, speaking with a conviction that can only come with experience.

Closer Scorpio Purple Skies, a near ten-minute drone glistening with the lap steel of John Also Bennett, gestures to something more elemental and cosmic, the mythic and the earthly folding in on themselves.

Picton has led out of this gathered ensemble a record that lives and breathes, and can be lived and breathed in.

The title track, Cruel World, is a brilliantly deceptive slice of sunshine. .... Elsewhere, the album is quieter and less sure footed.

The trick that Johnny Lynch, aka Pictish Trail, has pulled on us all, however, is that beneath the froth and the dayglo is a set of songs that truly shine, sticking to your ears like Silly String, getting tangled in your brain and your heartstrings.

What unites it all is Eisenberg's ability to roam freely without ever losing the thread – it turns out the confidence was warranted.