Courting – ‘New Last Name’ review: taking rock to new extremes

24 January, 2024

courting

Courting’s music is like a piñata of pop culture references. Break into its core and you’ll be hit with an explosion of personality and meme mythology: on their 2022 debut ‘Guitar Music’, the Liverpool quartet namechecked Charli XCX, viral self-care routines and film-sharing platform Letterboxd atop a wilfully chaotic mix of jangle pop, emo and SOPHIE-inspired electronic glitches. A swarming overload of riffs and noise, it made for a rewardingly messy first statement, and became a touchstone within a scene of teenage music fans.

READ MORE: Courting: Liverpool upstarts giving UK guitar music a vivid, much-needed shake-up

But how to go about translating the humour, charm and world-building of Courting – who indulge in the type of shitposting that will be familiar to anyone involved in online fandom – to a wider audience? Get The Cribs on speed-dial, it appears. Gary and Ryan Jarman assisted on production duties for Courting’s second LP, ‘New Last Name’, helping the band to lean further into their gifts for melody. Recent single ‘Emily G’ is the sound of an act given the tools to realise their vision, as crisp, filtered guitar loops shimmer against frontman Sean Murphy-O’Neill’s processed croon.

There is a coiled intensity at the heart of ‘New Last Name’. The propulsive drums on ‘The Wedding’ feel like a steady build to one properly euphoric moment, while the two minute-long burst of static and spliced screams that rounds off ‘Happy Endings’ feels on par with the recent acclaimed material from digicore scene-leader Jane Remover. These contrasting sounds blend into and inform each other in adventurous ways.

Perhaps there’s an argument to be made that, much like the material on ‘Guitar Music’, this near-relentless approach to genre-hopping can occasionally feel too busy, and a little exhausting. And sure, there’s some truth to that: don’t compare Courting to The 1975, the band tell us, but it’s hard to ignore the similarities between clenched-fist vocal delivery and noodling sax of ‘We Look Good Together (Big Words)’ and 2018’s ‘A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships’. But there’s also a sense that few – if any – other young British guitar acts are currently making music as unhinged as this, and in small doses it can be ridiculously fun.

Some other stylistic choices prevent ‘New Last Name’ from being the disruptive moment it clearly wants to be – ‘Flex’ and its nod to ‘Mr Brightside’ (“now she’s calling a cab”), doesn’t quite land – but the album’s overall vibrancy doesn’t dim on repeated listens. What’s clear is that the playful, “for the plot” vibe of a band that started on a lark is beginning to transform into something close to remarkable.