Frog

Frog’s second LP Kind of Blah is one that swings from highs to lows, from poppy pep to slowed down sadness and it encompasses every other emotion within it’s short running time that any of us would know. Opener “All Dogs Go To Heaven” is a guitar led-piece that showcases the duo’s bittersweet indie pop and sets out their intent to lift you up before bringing you down. “Fucking” rides waves of preppy energy while “Wish Upon a Bar” takes the pace back down and incorporates echoing organs and a steady ramping up of layers of sound to give the song a boost towards its closing stages.

It’s a trick that flows sublimely through the bands second album – beautiful moments of despair contrast with otherwise perky garage rock progressions but underneath it all is the grime of New York, a feeling the members know all too well about their home city. Kind of Blah was apparently recorded in a disused bowling alley, and the lack of polish across the record serves this album perfectly. Not many albums could get away with the rough edges that pepper frog’s music, but Kind of Blah would suffer from being cleaned up, the quirks of the recording only add to the pain that slips through the undercurrent of the songs featured here. “Photograph” treads the realms of Antlers perhaps, with huge melodies that contradict the ache at the heart of the song, crushing any semblance of hope along the way.

Kind of Blah is an album that speaks to many, and it will speak to you if you give it a chance. There's a honesty and humanity at its core and Frog pull shimmers of beauty through music that is sad, painful and desperately catchy.

7.5 / 10 — Cheryl