Photo Courtesy of Kanine Records
U.K. indie pop trio Flowers is rumored to have formed after guitarist Sam Ayres printed out fliers calling for bandmates interested in making music that sounded like "early Madonna through a broken tape machine."
Even on their sophomore release, “Everyone’s Dying to Meet You,” their Material Girl aesthetic seems to be the only semblance of identity the band has. Maintaining consistence with their first album, 2014’s “Do What You Want To, It’s What You Should Do,” the band keeps their charming melodies and jangly guitars alongside frontwoman Rachael Kennedy’s almost angelic falsetto. However, their second release seems more to be a direct extension of their prior releases rather than a full-fledged album of its own, failing to offer much more than they already have in the past.
The influence of indie pop legends like The Smiths and Belle and Sebastian is undeniably present in Flowers’ music. Lesser-known but equally important acts like Galaxie 500 and My Bloody Valentine also lend an ample portion of their sound to Flowers. From there, the band merges sickly-sweet melodies, dreary lyrics and spacy C-86-inspired ambiance together in order to create a sound that has already been done for years by bands with much more musical competency.
This is not to say “Everyone is Dying to Meet You” is a bad album; it’s just largely uninspired apart when compared to its direct influences. The band’s direct influences may have set the standards too high, making Flowers fall even shorter. Critics say the band is striving to create the perfect pop song on their own accord, but they have much more work ahead of them before coming to that point. One thing the band does particularly well, however, is the creation of poppy, crunching melodies. Though often overshadowing many other songs of the album, the album’s strongest songs are also its most innocuous. The promotional single “Ego Loss” finds Flowers blossoming into themselves as best they can; the song gradually grows from a hollow guitar strum and drum beat to single-handedly fill out the album as a whole. The lyrics are harmless in hindsight as Kennedy repeatedly coos, “Do you know, do you know,” but it does manage to hinder the song when the rest of the album is so innocuous.
As a whole, “Everyone is Dying to Meet You” is exactly what one could expect from Flowers. The melodies are crisp and punchy, even if they do not tend to stick with you. There is a clear sense of who Flowers is as a band, but they easily fade into the shadows when so many other bands are crafting the same sound. If nothing else, Flowers has a consistency and drive underneath their harmless façade. They just need to tap deeper into it.
ksuchman@ramapo.edu
