It’s early morning, I have just sat on my desk, and ‘Black Cats Are Bad Luck’ is the first record to grace my ears. I must say, it’s a fitting choice: boasting an expansive and evocative sonic character, the album takes listeners through an eclectic musical journey balanced between art pop and shoegaze/indie stylings. Such a formula guarantees quirkiness and familiarity, making it viable for a large audience.
Penned by Scottish outfit Nuclear Club, ‘Black Cats Are Bad Luck’ introduces itself with the fragrant and lush indie gem, ‘Hexavalent Chromium’. By the time you are onto the following episode – the title track – something starts to become clear: the band’s lyricism is highly nuanced and refined, exploring the relationship between culture and technology, both in the present and the past. It’s nostalgic, complex songwriting, yet it’s wrapped in spacious, blissful vocals, making it digestible and alluring.
Further on, one must recognise ‘I Fought The Law’ as an electronic outlier: leaving groovy drums behind, the piece jumps into introspective and intimate indie-pop settings. Speaking about the inspiration behind the record, Nuclear Club explains: “We took inspiration from lots of different places: we wanted to capture some of the up-tempo pop from artists like Charli XCX and Georgia, lively indie beat-building from artists like Friendly Fires and Passion Pit, and sinister textures from artists like Weval and Holy Fuck.”
Recommended! Discover ‘Black Cats Are Bad Luck’ on Spotify:
