ALBUM REVIEW: Blossoms - Gary

Whether it's touring covers of The Smiths with Rick Astley, or campaigning for the location of a stolen fibre-glass gorilla, Blossoms continue to dominate the headlines of the Indie scene 8 years after their debut chart-topping album. The recent release of their fifth studio album ‘Gary’ has been well received by fans and critics alike, unsurprisingly securing their fourth UK number one. 

Having reunited production forces with The Coral’s James Skelly, they also inlisted the help of Jungle’s Josh-Lloyd Watson on ‘What Can I Say After I’m Sorry?’ and ‘Nightclub’ and collaborated with BRIT-nominated Irish star CMAT for production and cowriting on ‘I Like Your Look’ and ‘Why Do I Give You The Worst of Me?’.

Album opener ‘Big Star’ felt like an ode to Arctic Monkeys' ‘Star Treatment’, switching the ‘Tranquillity Base Hotel and Casino’ for synths and a pool bar. This track then sets the tone for the rest of the album – a reinvention of their sound that still retains the Blossoms essence we all love.

‘What Can I Say After I’m Sorry?’ was teased earlier this year, with video cameos from Rick Astley and Sean Dyche (a question we assume many Everton fans would be eager to answer). The song encapsulates Blossoms’ catchy melodies and infectious rhythms, later solidified in ‘Nightclub’, and the Damon Albarn channelled ‘I Like Your Look’.

The titular track ‘Gary’ continues the theme of unlikely crossovers, merging a Beatles-esque storytelling with a SpongeBob inspired Bridge, to call for the return of an 8-foot fibre glass gorilla stolen from Lanarkshire Garden Centre in 2023.

Their excellent storytelling is not just reserved for the absurd, with ‘Mothers’ telling the fated friendship of the mothers of frontman Tom Ogden and drummer Joe Donovan. They continue their world building in ‘Cinnamon’, transporting the listener into a record store playing Squeeze’s ‘Cool for Cats’, as we follow his new-wave love leading him up the junction.

‘Perfect Me’ and ‘Slow Down’ are excellent live performance contenders, you can almost already hear an audience returning the chorus’. The album ends with ‘Why Did I Give You The Worst of Me?’, a quintessentially Blossoms song, taking listeners back to 2016 and encapsulating what they have achieved with this album – a modern revitalisation of their sound that still remains authentically Blossoms.