Sick Love: Champagne review – Emo-tinted grunge with a knockout combo of pace and panache

What are most bands if not a group of “people who have been through the ups and downs of music and life together”? If that description is anything to go by, Sick Love seem not to subscribe to big ideals or extravagant notions – but the Dublin four-piece are nevertheless committed to their craft, if this record is anything to go by.

This debut album was a decade in the making; an initial attempt was scrapped when Covid prematurely put the stoppers on their progress, which had been buoyed by the inclusion of a song (Gun in Your Pocket) in the TV series The Young Offenders. Following that false start, this is a forthright, confident step forward.

Clearly influenced by acts such as Paramore, Champagne’s 10 tracks plough a furrow in emo-tinted grunge, frontwoman Rebecca Geary leading the quartet’s charge of short, sharp bursts of rock that leave self-indulgence at the door.

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Sucka bursts out of the traps with a giddy shudder; Holly’s self-confident strut and the satisfyingly brash Bodyclock are radio hits in waiting. Don’t Wait harnesses early-noughties punk-pop, while the brisk Chill for the Summer and – with its slinky, sleazy strut – Jacknife are apt foils for the more anthemic, reflective numbers such as Orbit and Conversation.

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The title track is the undoubted standout, its eerie, atmospheric tilt taking in the jazzy brush of drums, the soft parp of brass and a jagged guitar riff for an uneasy, off-kilter gem. True, this kind of spiky pop-rock has all been done before, and Sick Love’s lyric sheet often errs on the side of platitudinous, from “We can fix this if you just stay the night” to “He’s got a suitcase full of Adderall” – although Geary’s impassively wry declaration “I’m trying to tell you I’m flatter than 7-Up”, on Don’t Wait, is not a line you’d hear on a US rock record.

Despite those missteps, Sick Love’s knockout combo of pace and panache makes for an enjoyable album that is somewhat lacking in originality. Still, that’s no great sin in a debut.

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