The Norwegian pop-punkers, formerly known as ‘Slutface’ until the Facebook regulators booted up a fuss, now known as Sløtface, release their long-awaited debut LP Try Not To Freak Out, a joyous marriage between noughties indie-pop and 80s US punk. Try Not To Freak Out buries serious sentiment within a coating of light hearted antics – disguised beneath the layers of candy-cane pop-punk lies a sentiment echoed by artists throughout 2017, it’s anti-Trump and anti-Brexit by default but, asides from the obvious political squabbles, it makes several other statements worthy of further note. What makes Try Not To Freak Out important is that it isn’t so much a call to arms, but rather a call to disarm and pull on your Christmas jumper. There’s a party incoming from Norway and it’s here to shout with you, but show you a light rather than a pool of misery.

Album opener, ‘Magazine’ dances with a laissez-faire freedom that 2017’s soundtrack has seldom seen. Hidden beneath the Fountains Of Wayne outer shell, frontwoman and primary songwriter. Haley Shea laments the objectification of women in the media: “Patti Smith would never put up with this shit” she calls. Sløtface are a band for the kids of today, you see, not only do they teach lessons, such as the aforementioned mistreatment of women, but they relate to their audience. ‘Galaxies’ takes note of youthful innocence, the growing pains of teenagers and the garnering of independence: “All we ever seem to talk about / Is puking our guts out.” ‘Pitted’ is a desperately jaunty song, hidden beneath its vexed guitar lines Shea shows an aptness for toying with lyrics: “And we’ll dance like our dads doing our ‘Hotline Bling’ thing / God it’s embarrassing, god we’re embarrassing.”

‘Sun Bleached' lurks as one of the album’s finest cuts, it acts as the album’s epitome of teenage optimism and is a sure-fire number to win over new fans, cutting elements of Weezer with the pop fun of The Wombats. The lessons taught from alt-rock 00s groups such as the Jimmy Eat World and Good Charlotte shine through within the music of Sløtface, who demonstrate an ability to drop into titanic choruses with seamless ease – just listen to ‘Sun Bleached’ and its: “come pick me up, heartbreaker on repeat.”

Where the band further show their prolificness is when they can strip away from the occasionally overly-polished, metallic finesse that bubble-wraps fragments of the album. When they can peel this back and find the rougher, slightly more abrasive sound, we learn of a new side to the band. ‘Night Guilt’ finds Shea’s vocals reaching new, slightly coarse heights and guitars that lead to Smashing Pumpkins-styled crescendos. This style is re-visited once more within ‘Nancy Drew’, a number that mocks the patriarchal singer-songwriter side to the music industry through the eyes of an invented superhero, titled Nancy Drew. Musically it shows a defined, muscular vigour, although the song unfortunately feels slightly cut short, it omits real promise for the Norwegians.

As you catch the tail-end of the album, numbers such as ‘Slumber’ demonstrate a maturity to the band that couldn’t be found as clearly within the album’s earlier embers. The slightly brooding melancholia of ‘Slumber’ finds closer shores to the likes of Brand New and Los Campesinos!; these are shores well worth visiting though, demonstrating once more that Sløtface are a hard band to cast within pre-set genre moulds.

Desperate not to be outlined and defined as a punk band per se, the group skirt between pop hooks, classic-punk sounds and youthful ethics. They’re a glimmer of hope and light for the young starters in music, a welcome arrival in what can otherwise be described as quite a bleak time in society. Amid a spike in terrorism, World War Z kicking into gear over in North Korea and a rapid front-flip into an early winter, Sløtface are here to provide the honest truth embedded within the playfulness of pop punk; rebellion never sounded so fun and, as it happens, it exists away from the self-importance of other artists’ albums (see Prophets Of Rage for that supplement). The fun is back, then, and it’s here courtesy of Norway.

Tom Churchill

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