Chester trio Peaness finally release their debut album ‘World Full of Worry’ on 6 May through their own Totally Snick Records label. The release follows numerous EPs, tours and a live session with Marc Riley on 6 Music and lives up to its title with a steely determination to get through the mundanity of modern life and the struggles of mental health shining through in so many of the songs…
‘Take a Trip’ opens the album in surprisingly stripped-back fashion as the band – Jessica Branney, Rachel Williams and Carleia Balbenta – take you on a journey through the sea, complete with wave and gull sound effects. This is followed by the more traditional fuzzy indie-pop of ‘Kaizen’, a melodic piece with a wistful attitude: ‘It’s not the time to say you don’t know’. ‘How I’m Feeling’ reminded us of Indoor Pets with its delicious hooks, while the introspective and self-depreciating lyrics sit firmly in the Rosie Tucker or Jeffrey Lewis camp: ‘My body is aching and my heart is too’; ‘I’m staring at my window, watching the people rush. If only I could give myself that push’.
‘Girl Just Relax’ is a song about wanting to hide from the modern world as anxiety grapples you and acts as a pep talk to practice self-care: ‘Embrace the tide and go outside, just go outside’; ‘I want to create and concentrate’; ‘Stay off my phone when I’m home alone’. Recent single ‘irl’ continues with the self-examination – although this time backed by a combination of Orchards-style math-pop sounds and samba beats: ‘What if I told you lies? Would you be surprised?’
‘Worry’ tackles a break-up in a poignant way as the band explain how this is what happens to other people while examing the physical toll this kind of situation can have on you before ‘Left to Fall Behind’ takes the album into breezy surf-pop territory, albeit with sadness and anger in the lyrics: ‘Why you got to be so mean to me?’ ‘Hurts ’til It Doesn’t’ is also more restrained with delicate harmonies and a poignant rhetorical question: ‘What am I gonna do? I’m falling in love with you?’
The album comes to a close with the appropriately titled ‘Sad Song’ – an anthemic piece with shades of early ’90s alt-rock and the mantra that it’s best to cut the cord quickly when a relationship has run its course: ‘People change, I’ve grown too far from you’; ‘It’s no good. I can’t pretend that we’re alright’.
While the world may indeed be full of worry, don’t fret as Peaness are here to offer a helping hand that will help us all get through the tough times.
