Review | Floodlights – Underneath

Label: [PIAS] Recordings

By Toby Furlong

Floodlights keep the gloves firmly off and bare all on an album that considers vulnerabilities, hopes, fear and passion. Out of the fire, the band emerge with the incredibly courageous ‘Underneath‘

‘Alive ( I Want To Feel)‘ throws the gauntlet down and the band rally together in the most cohesive sounding record by the group so far. The track is a perfect introduction for an album focused on the overcoming of fear and choosing resilience. Ashlee Kehoe’s driving guitar is the guiding light and that trademark interplay between this and vocalist Louis Parson’s outrageously talented voice is a Floodlight’s staple we have come to anticipate on every project.

On ‘Joy’ you can hear that gloriously rich guitar tone, rhythmically the band have never sounded as in harmony as they display on this track. ‘Joy‘ describes the infinite twists of a mountain road and resonates with an album written on tour in the UK and Europe in which the journey was likely to feel endless. Or maybe it’s the sound to accompany life when you are staring into the void at our cookie cutter UK motorways from the tour van

‘Buoyant‘ and ‘Horses Will Run’ are the joint moments where the band’s natural instinct is to be completely free, louder, rawer and to channel these feelings through the lightning rod that is Kehoe’s guitar work. The latter is a poignant song of reunion and reconnection amidst a meditation on grief; the determination of the band resist any opportunities to wallow in the emotion.

Within ‘This Island’, Parson finds himself “walking through the big white streets” asking himself he can still feel “feel lost and lonely”. Against a backdrop of identity, change and belonging, you can observe a bracing overall feel of ‘me and you against the world’, and a very memorable set of rockin’ guitar melodies.

All eyes now on the absolute rabble rouser that is ‘Can You Feel It’. Look beyond the wall of sound production and you find Floodlights capturing the feeling of standing at the edge of the world, looking out beyond the open sky and the unexpected that lurks beyond.

Resonating with a similar sensation is the closing track ‘5AM‘, it evokes the same sense of anticipation of stepping off the ledge into the unknown. Make no mistake, Floodlights stand united before a golden opportunity and there should be no doubts about the band’s ability to shoot for the stars.

Every decade in indie-rock is dominated by place or scene and with ‘Underneath‘, Floodlights are placed alongside Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever and Courtney Barnett, proving that Australia will be the epicentre for the scene deep into the 2020’s.