Having met back in 2015 at the University of North Carolina, Peter Vance, Justin Ellis and Jake Waits – aka Happy Abandon – have now released a thought-provoking new album.
Facepaint is filled with impassioned offerings inspired by feelings of loss and loneliness, each track exuding its own rich musical allure.
Album opener ‘Ivory Bound’ immediately introduces your ears to the flowing, shimmering melodies and stirring, raw emotion that characterises the album as a whole. Flowing with soaring strings, it’s a wonderfully anthemic start to the collection. Similarly, ‘Beneath Our Feat’ oozes an impressive musicality alongside the seething passion of Vance’s vocals and a racing sense of urgency.
Fusing together an eclectic array of influences, from the delicate folky melodies of ‘Take Me’ and the gentle, simmering emotion of ‘Severed Seams’, to the intense orchestral splendour and captivating crescendo of tracks such as ‘If I Stare’, the collection interweaves rich musical layers and powerful emotion, resulting in a truly impressive, and utterly engrossing, whole.
With an intense, searing melancholy, album closer ‘Cursed Or Worse’ is a heartrending way to close this collection of cinematic, emotion-strewn indie-pop offerings.
Having toured the east coast of the US and Canada, and played at SXSW, Happy Abandon are now ready to grace the UK with the spine-tingling power of Facepaint.
Facepaint is out now via Schoolkids Records.