It Hugs Back – Laughing Party

As if It Hugs Back’s band name wasn’t misleadingly twee enough, Laughing Party’s title and colourful cover seem like a concerted effort to build up preconceptions – only to plough headlong through them with inventive and expansive opener The Big E. It takes confidence to open with a fifteen minute, space-rock goliath (the ‘E’ is presumably short for ‘epic’), though as it rides its hypnotic bassline through inventively noisy landscapes, it more than warrants its forefront placing.

While its density and energy is exhilarating, it’s an exhausting point of entry, and with fifty minutes of record hot on its heels, sustaining so high a watermark is a tall order. Against the odds, Laughing Party largely retains its composure, thanks to diversifying miniatures like Half American. But there remains an underlying feeling that, while there are more than enough ideas to sustain the album's duration, there’s not quite the stamina.