Review | Lauran Hibberd – Girlfriend Material

Label: Virgin Music

By Issy Packer

Singer-songwriter Lauran Hibberd returns with her sophomore album, ‘Girlfriend Material‘, following her 2022 debut LP, ‘Garageband Superstar‘.

Kickstarting with ‘I Suck At Grieving‘, the 26 year old uses her cultural knowledge of her milieu with references to Gilmore Girls, while the transparent lyrics give an introspective look into the singer’s struggle with grieving and healing.

The heavy guitar backing is reminiscent of 90’s female fronted bands and noughties artists, with ‘Jealous‘ sounding like it came straight off Avril Lavigne’s ‘Let It Go‘ album.

The over-produced backing vocals appearing at intervals alongside the slow tempo building to a fast-paced climax feels eerily familiar to Lavigne’s ‘Complicated‘.

In comparison, ‘Mary‘ takes it influence from American rock bands; the lyric “I ditched the guy for the girl next door” sits within the realm of Fountains of Wayne and All-American Rejects. You can almost picture the music video while listening to it: a live band performance in a mundane suburban setting with over-saturated colours and fisheye camera effect.

Hibberd is at her strongest when she’s looking inward, her lyrics full of both wit and sincerity and although she’s looking inward, she’s also relatable to everyone else at her age. The mundanity of Hibberd’s lyrics are beneficial to the art she’s crafting; making her personable, relatable and human.

‘90s Kids‘ puts those earlier influences on full display, directly referencing Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit‘ and the Spice Girls while looking at what it’s like being in your 20s in 2024; being worried about money, being stuck in a 9-5 job and the difficulty of growing up.

The majority of the tracks on the album are short and snappy, many of them coming in at under three minutes long, giving the album a snappy pace. Many of the tracks lean into this, their tempos and melodies upbeat and rapid, there’s little time to slow down when you’ve got so many issues to confront.

However ‘Anti Fragile‘, the seventh track on the 12 track LP, brings a welcome change in pace. A stripped back, slow track, Hibberd’s vocals along with her lyricism are on display. It’s a beautifully crafted song and this version of Hibberd shows just how versatile she can be.

The singer recruits Alex Gaskarth, lead vocalist of All Time Low, for ‘Pretty Good For A Bad Day‘ but while he feels criminally underused, it proves Hibberd’s attention to her sound, once again confronting her noughties rock-pop sound with the help of the singer and songwriter from one of America’s biggest rock bands.

Ending the album with ‘Not The Girl You Hoped‘, the track is the antithesis of the album opener. A slow-tempo number that ratchets up the intensity before bottoming out altogether with Hibberd’s vocals and the sound of a soft guitar being the last thing you hear after an album full of catchy hooks, dominating guitar melodies and pop-fuelled anthems.

You will be forgiven for thinking the artist is American born (she’s from the Isle of Wight), only proving that she’s expertly pieced together her sound from the 90s and 2000s pop-rock influences she grew up listening to.

A dose of nostalgia alongside her unique voice and endearing lyrics, ‘Girlfriend Material‘ makes the most of Lauran Hibberd’s talents.