Dave Simpson 

Honeyblood: Honeyblood review – vigorous 90-style indie-pop

There's certainly nothing new on Honeyblood's 90s-indebted debut album, but the songs are pretty decent, writes Dave Simpson
  
  

Honeyblood
Vim and effervescence … Honeyblood Photograph: PR

This Glaswegian female duo's name harks back to the days when it was fashionable to combine polar opposites to form an eyecatching moniker – the Stone Roses, Mudhoney et al. Lo and behold, their music has much in common with late-1980s/early-1990s indie, too. They namecheck PJ Harvey and Throwing Muses in interviews, but their sound is actually more akin to the excitable, lo-fi indie-pop fuzz of the Shop Assistants or the Darling Buds. There's nothing new here, but it's all done with vim and effervescence. Killer Bangs bubbles with pop fizz, Bud's "Nip it in the bud!" hookline is something of an earworm and Stina Tweeddale's lilting-then-shrill delivery ("Slimeball! Sleaze!") recalls the Sundays' Harriet Wheeler. In fact, Tweeddale's voice is the best thing here, although it might be more suited to Dolly Parton-type big country rock than what – for all its charms – its still generic indie rock.

 

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