Fast forward to 2023, and the Hoosiers are about to release their best ever album. But why now? “Possibly as a by-product of having nearly lost the opportunity to play music again in lockdown,” says Irwin, “Al and I find ourselves more in love with each other, the band and making music with each other in this particular band than ever before.” Thank God, I hear you cry, because Confidence really is a revelation. Produced by Sam Miller, who mixed the first album, and recorded at Angelic Recording Studios – the line-up in the studio is completed by Leighton Allen on bass, and Paul Frith on keyboards – Confdence kicks off – after the brief, instrumental flurry of Welcome To Confidence – with the Metronomy/Daft Punk-tinged (no, really) Making A Monster, an extraordinary song (with brass courtesy of Old Dirty Brasstards) each verse featuring another lover's side of the story, a fabricated romantic impasse, where both parties are gaslighting, both twisting events. After that, lead single Hello Sunshine is a Sparks/Feeling-type affair about fighting to see the positive, and avoid being dragged down by a loved one's darker tendencies, whilst Idaho is effortlessly fabulous, and the least balladic murder ballad about covering up a crime and laying plans to live a wonderful, normal life, you could find - this side of Bonnie & Clyde, or True Romance. Up next, the impossibly-catchy erotomania anthem, G.O.A.T. sets us up for the gorgeous Lip Sinking – about lying to other people, by telling them what you think they want to hear. The latter is utterly beguiling, of course, like Fountains of Wayne at their dreampop best.
Fast forward to 2023, and the Hoosiers are about to release their best ever album. But why now? “Possibly as a by-product of having nearly lost the opportunity to play music again in lockdown,” says Irwin, “Al and I find ourselves more in love with each other, the band and making music with each other in this particular band than ever before.” Thank God, I hear you cry, because Confidence really is a revelation. Produced by Sam Miller, who mixed the first album, and recorded at Angelic Recording Studios – the line-up in the studio is completed by Leighton Allen on bass, and Paul Frith on keyboards – Confdence kicks off – after the brief, instrumental flurry of Welcome To Confidence – with the Metronomy/Daft Punk-tinged (no, really) Making A Monster, an extraordinary song (with brass courtesy of Old Dirty Brasstards) each verse featuring another lover's side of the story, a fabricated romantic impasse, where both parties are gaslighting, both twisting events. After that, lead single Hello Sunshine is a Sparks/Feeling-type affair about fighting to see the positive, and avoid being dragged down by a loved one's darker tendencies, whilst Idaho is effortlessly fabulous, and the least balladic murder ballad about covering up a crime and laying plans to live a wonderful, normal life, you could find - this side of Bonnie & Clyde, or True Romance. Up next, the impossibly-catchy erotomania anthem, G.O.A.T. sets us up for the gorgeous Lip Sinking – about lying to other people, by telling them what you think they want to hear. The latter is utterly beguiling, of course, like Fountains of Wayne at their dreampop best.
