If anyone can save the world, it’s Unpeople. In their jet-propelled rise to stardom, they’ve inspired dance parties at Download at a time when any sane person is hiding in their tent with a bacon sandwich, taken over a corner of Slam Dunk’s main stage and even persuaded Metallica fans to give their indefinable grunge joy a chance. Their irrepressible energy has been compressed into their long-awaited and much-hyped debut, ‘We Are Unpeople’; twelve tracks that’ll challenge your heart and mind, and leave you feeling like maybe we’ve all got a chance at redemption.
Half the tracks are well known to the growing Unpeople fandom already. We open with the deceptively cute ‘Clouds’ that disintegrates into heavy optimism of the distinctly Britpop variety, and ‘Friends’ – the song for everyone who’s been fed the line about being better off as mates by a crush and knows the sensation of having to grit your teeth as you reply – grates with screamed frustration. There’s no pastoral idyll in ‘The Garden’, but there is a wheelbarrow full of sarcasm and grunge power, and ‘Blueprints’, the “ballad track” with accompanying adorable video, is a moment of blue skies and unchained euphoria. As a primer, the songs we already love as singles serve as a great primer to the Unpeople sound; universally appealing, with grit and joy to reach out across the dividing lines of genre.
The other fifty percent of ‘We Are Unpeople’ cements what we’ve already realised. These guys are doing something seriously interesting and original, and a song like ‘Swallow’, which swerves between singalong anthem, scream fest and snarky chanter, shows exactly why they’ve got so big so quickly. ‘Bottle It’ might be the most quintessential track on the album though, the one you’ll play people to persuade them to get on the bandwagon. It channels the grunge undercurrent that runs through this whole release into moments of bitter harmony and ferocious loveliness, and that particular flow reaches it’s crest on ‘Haunted’, with its bass boost and punk-ish tendencies. We have to love a slightly unhinged vision on a record, and that’s what Unpeople bring to the table so incredibly well. Call it retrospective hindsight if you want, but there’s so much of their future tour buddies Don Broco in the mix on ‘Look Up’, haunting the lyrics and melody with their brash ultra-realism, but also their sense of triumph. That’s the quality that makes closer ‘As You Were’ such a winner; we feel like we’ve made it along with Unpeople, and lets slip that they’ve only just begun their musical quest.
‘We Are Unpeople’ contains multitudes, not just of vibrant and original musical ideas, but also of pathways and intentions. As a debut and the culmination of two years of touring, single releases and buildup, ‘We Are Unpeople’ is a brilliant opening statement that cements Unpeople in the much coveted and elusive niche of “One To Watch”. It also presents so many options and avenues which they could explore down the line, as it feels certain at this point that they’re going to be sticking around. Will they lean into the rage, float through the grunge-scapes or sweep us away with the dreamy vocal icing sugar that they add to every tune? It’s too soon to tell, but right now: we’ve got one hell of a first record to play on repeat.
KATE ALLVEY