“Dirty pop” quartet Indoor Pets have finally released their long-awaited debut Be Content; a record seemingly full of a bottomless pool of great tunes. Familiar feelings of not fitting in or wanting to play the hand life’s dealt you are delivered with self-deprecating wit and their trademark use of double-bluffing word play. Think Rivers Cuomo and a pre-sandpit Brian Wilson bunking off school to play records and snigger at the cool kids. They’re smart, life-affirming and all contained within a thumping primary-coloured pop wallop.
The album follows their signing to Wichita Recordings, and was co-produced by the band’s guitarist, James Simpson and Kristofer Harris and mixed by Claudius Mittendorfer (Weezer, Ash, Yak, Parquet Courts). With the first of six lead singles coming out in 2016, the record was extended to 14 tracks to reward their patient fanbase. They told Dork in December “We could’ve just put out the majority of our EPs and singles, and we’ve got 14 tracks there straight away, but we didn’t want to do that because people have been waiting for such a long time we almost felt that it’d be a bit of a cop-out to put something out that they’ve already heard. There are some songs people might have thought we would include that aren’t on there and some three-year-old tracks that just fit so perfectly we wanted to put them on there. I think we’ve got five songs you might’ve heard and nine new songs, which is a pretty good balance.”
DIY awarded it 5 stars, championing how their older singles fit in well within the new tracks, proving they’d done well to “cherry-pick the best of their past releases”. Similarly, it was 9/10 by Dark Side Music and 8/10 by Gigs North East.
Formed in Kent, it wasn’t long before their effortless songs were attracting attention, with one of them making Record Of The Week on BBC Introducing Kent and within two weeks Huw Stephens had picked up on the track. The band also made mainstream headlines last October when they had thousands of pounds worth of equipment stolen from them on tour, and sold tea towels in order to fund new gear.
Indoor Pets are due to tour the UK next month so grab your tickets now!
Tags: indoor pets / news