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The Umbrellas - Fairweather Friend

Artist: The Umbrellas

Author: Sarah

Date: 01/28/2024

Listen: Apple Music | Bandcamp | Spotify

It must be said that indiepop has never been the world's most original genre; but for some reason I viewed that as a flaw more for the Umbrellas than I ever did for, say, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart, despite calling the latter killers of indiepop in my more hyperbolic moments (I might talk more about that some other time). There's wearing your influences on your sleeve, and there's trying too hard to sound too much like them, and all too often indiepop bands have the tendency to fall into the latter category, the Umbrellas not being immune to this. Even still, the Maritime EP was really good, and even contains an all-time classic in "City Song", but when their Slumberland debut felt like it sanded down all the rough and charming edges, I lost faith.

I shouldn't have, of course. Fairweather Friend represents a massive improvement over their debut on all fronts. The songwriting hits me more, it sounds just a bit less polished in the best possible way, and most importantly, it feels like they're starting to come into a sound of their own. There's still a couple moments on here where you can almost hear what they were listening to as they wrote the songs (is that "Sullen Eyes" I'm hearing in the guitar in "Goodbye"?), but for the most part this feels like the establishment of a new direction that's unmistakably the Umbrellas. Over the course of 34 minutes, they went from a band that had me thinking "I guess I'd see them if they did a show here" to actively a fan and looking forward to wherever they go next. All of this to say "thanks for the music, sorry to have doubted you, please do a show in my area". Ironically, I guess this makes me their fairweather friend?