Glasgow indie-pop four-piece Brontës releas’d their self-titled debut album in April 2026 – The Mumble have had it on our turntables for a month…
When it comes to reviewing albums, I prefer to take my time, cooking a nice reviewey stew by listening to a track a day. Never, however, have I woken up each following morning with the previous day’s song earworming into my brain. Yes, the eponymous debut of Glasgow’s ‘ Brontës’, is full of catchy hooks that say, however hard you try to dodge the bait, reel & rod, Damo, you will soon be one of our adoring & appreciative fans.
The album cover is great, but it’s what’s inside that counts, let’s take a look at the 10 tracks which constitute the Brontës ear worm confederation, I mean vestibule of greatness, I mean… album. 10 tracks is your standard amount of tracks – five on each side of a thin slice of vinyl, just like the one I saw at the Brontës own album release at the Loud & Clear store in Finnieston.
It was a cool do, with some live music from the group upstairs first, glasses of complimentaries, & then the band splitting into two groups of two, to play each side of the album on 2 different very expensive sound systems. Which I didn’t buy, but I did grab the album on vinyl & slapp’d it on my own decks – which I bought for about 1 percent of Loud & Clear’s Fabergé egg versions on gumtree.
LISTEN TO THE ALBUM
The album was recorded by supersound Stuart MacLeod, whose own in-depth interview on the album’s creation I will be quoting throughout this review. The creative core of the band is Erin Reidy, who plays all the instruments on the tracks. She also adds melodies to the unique voice of lead singer, Eva Watt, who with drummer, Amelia Haldane-Briggs, contributing lower harmonies, together create a veritable Pet Sounds soundscape of scintillating singing.
The album has been released by ‘Last Night from Glasgow,’ an “ethically minded Independent record label” who were named “Record Label of the Year 2021”. Of his work with the label, Stuart MacLeod said;
A couple of years ago I started working with the wonderful Last Night From Glasgow label, and we’ve had some notable successes together – including a run of four albums last year that all reached the Top 30 of various UK charts – Sister John went to number one in the Scottish album charts, The Muldoons reached number 1 in the UK Indie Breakers chart, The Cowboy Mouth and Louise Connell both reached number 3 in the Scottish Album Charts.
SIDE ONE
COGNITIVE DISSONANCE
A funky Fleetwood Mac-esque opener whose chorus has been less an earworm, more a snakepit infested in my head. Well catchy. The song also sets the general template for the album, slightly subdued verses out of which are born ubercatchy, uplifting chorusi. Then a cracking middle 8 & a well thought-out finale – this methodology is the Brontës at their song-writing best.
ASKING FOR A FRIEND
Out of a Nirvana-bass-style opening rises a ribbony melody, spitting out lines like;
My drink is finished it won’t be my last – tonight
With this, as we enter another love song communique, I realis’d that the main theme of the album would be one of ‘not-quite’ love.
This could solve all my problems
Or maybe start off a new one
A strange warbly instrument chugging throughout – another ambrosial chorus – the girls climbing an octave on angels’ wings – another excellent middle 8, the band step away from the groove & letting the song breath – then an amazing drum roll & a lovely tailing off ending leave you feeling ‘that was a reyt song that’
They’re cool, funny, razor sharp, and seem to be able to come up with effortlessly catchy, hook-laden songs at the drop of a hat. Seriously, the speed they wrote the album at was ridiculous, and the songs are consistently strong. And witty
Stuart MacLeod
WOULDN’T BE ME
This song begins with a classic rocky guitar riff, then segues into a proper bouncy number – & there they are again, that ‘not-quite’ couple.
Got her make up done
While he rolls another one
its right in front of you
Why can’t you see…
Has he even washed his hair
You act like you don’t care
I’ll tell you now that wouldn’t be me
Then BOOOOOM! The trademark Brontës chorus kicks in, gallumphing along the band’s higher range, so much so that I wanted to coin a new word for this native species of uplifting after-verses – the Brontëan chorus.
Time after time
You know its gonna cross the line
why would you settle for this fine
Move on babe
To tell you the truth
You should cut the guy loose
If you know what’s good move on babe
As for the rest of the tune, I really enjoy’d the bassline driving us to the end of the track, while the ‘move on babe’ harmony repetitions furnish’d a swirling finish to the song
SAN FRANCISCO
This a fecking belter of a tune, this one, like – the Bohemian Rhapsody of the album. A pure brilliant piece of songwriting, which shows the depths of creativity & artistry these girls can tap into – Led Zep level songcraft – as a fluid & lucid hypnosonic guitar sucks you in, the song begins
Let’s go to San Francisco the city where the wind blows
The song unveils a dream of growing old in a little house with your loved one, after they
Talked about it once or twice when we used to stay the night
This song has the best singing of the album so far – so much soul & some top-notch production from Stuart
Let’s fake it til we make it
Or have we reached our limit
Can we keep on pretending
The clouded happy ending
It’s very rare that a mellow tune is an absolute banger – but this one is!
The tracks are a collection of real and shared experiences as young women growing up in Glasgow. It’s about love, loss and the challenges we face such as how we have been treated by others or dealing with grown up problems like low pay and high bills. We have turned our mutual feelings of sadness, hurt and joy into art together and this piece is the perfect portrait of what we have lived so far. The message we wanted to send with the songs and lyrics is that it’s ok to struggle, we all do in our own ways, and it’s good to talk about it
The Brontës
MIXED SIGNALS
This song starts of subdued, but then the drums kick in & we’re off. For this number, Eva is singing in a different key, & then the lazar-sharp harmonies kick in. Outwith the nice descending bass line, & the chunky guitars, I love the chorus on this one, a motowny blast which quips;
I’m over the shit why don’t we give it a shot
… which then leads to the extended “love—–” phrase – yeah, pure trademark, 1960’s Detroit.
One minute were flirty
One minute we’re not….
If you wanna get dirty le’ts give it a shot
Misse’d signals & miss’d calls
Is it crazy to think that I might be in love
With a flurry of “headaches, heartbreaks” & “mistakes keeping me awake”, we arrive at the end of side one. It certainly seems that the lassies are definitely having a tumultuous time on the dating circuit. This debut really feels like a cathartic experience, lyrically.
(from) AN INTERVIEW WITH STUART MACLEOD
Mumble: Staying with the album, what are your three favourite moments from the band, when they are working & working wonderfully?
Stuart: My favourite moments from the band – that’s even tougher! There are genuinely SO many!
The first one is easy, though – it’s the final section in Wouldn’t Be Me, the “move on, babe – come on, babe” bit, because it just felt like everything the album was about came together perfectly in that one moment. I got pretty emotional mixing that song as a result.
Because…the whole album is essentially a document of the lives and experiences of these four extraordinary people, and in some ways it’s really sad as a result. To over-simplify it, it’s kind of nine songs about why guys are a bit crap, and one song about how great and supportive their friends are. And they’re a proper wee gang, there’s an amazing spirit and bond between them, they write the songs together, everyone contributing musically, everyone pitching in with their experiences and feelings.
The end result is really razor-sharp and funny (“…in those ugly jeans that your mum still cleans” STILL makes me laugh every time!) but it’s also really sad throughout, because at the end of the day this is how they’re experiencing life. It also informs just WHY they’re called Brontës and specifically not THE Brontës) in the first place, incidentally.
So, for me, that song is the quintessential Brontës song. It’s defiant, it’s supportive, and it’s catchy as all hell.
I think for the second moment I’d have to go for San Francisco. It’s the most obviously, openly sad song of the whole album, but there’s a bit of hope there too, it’s one of Eva’s best vocal performances because she’s managed to really convey that yearning and regret, and the musical arrangement is just gorgeous throughout.
Third…I’m going to go for Bad Manners, because I think it’s maybe the best bit of writing on the record. Maybe. It conveys a relatively simple idea in a really direct, powerful way, it has that sadness to it, and again it’s beautifully arranged and played. Also, it’s not one of the singles so it’ll inevitably get a bit less attention than other songs on the album, but again I have to stress – the ENTIRE album is really strong!! Listen to it ALL!
I’m also going to cheat here again and give you a fourth choice, which is the mood we created for Thelma And Louise, because it reminds me a bit of one of my favourite R.E.M. albums, Fables Of The Reconstruction. It’s dark, a bit gothic, a bit moody, and a bit different from a anything else on the record.
SIDE 2
Side 2, alas, is weaker than side one, like you’ve had all the faves in the chocolate box, & now you’re onto the ones you don’t know what taste like. There are still some great moments, however, & it opens brilliantly with Thelma & Louise, full of 1980’s c86 vibes serv’d up on a Smiths platter, it felt like a less frenetic Maximo Park, a band I really like, with a pure 80s big hair chorus. Next is the lass glamorous, less op-operatic, less exuberant Bad Manners, with its seductive opening riff & scented lyrics – it was pure Genesis, with Michael Jacksons ‘Black & White’ infiltrating the melodies. This
You don’t put the man in manners
but you put the rain in me
Taking up so much space & places you don’t need to be
but you put the rain in me
I Think I Love You is, yes, another song enrich’d by the album’s main theme, on whose jangly chorus I think we hear the best harmonies of the entire album. The jangles continue into the opening of Wake Up & It’s Gone, a wee opiate of track whose guitar overdubs I was really in to, whose trademark Brontës power-chorus came only at the end of the song. A rare twist away from which is quite a standardiz’d approach that the band has towards their songcraft.
Before recording the album we had not fully found our sound, and the final day we walked out the studio the new sound of Brontës had been discovered. Stuart MacLeod really helped us nurture the tracks with the resources in Beetroot Studios and we could not have got to where we are without him. Going into what we are writing next we are definitely more confident as songwriters and with each other as a band.
The Brontës
What I got from listening to the final tune, Jigsaw, is that the album isn’t a classic. All eighties staccato guitar chunks, it’s not one of the strongest songs, but I did enjoy the guitar at the very end, the riff spiralling off into various places – one minute anthemic, one minute psychedelic – a very interesting finale, but not soul stirring. A classic album needs to finish with a climactic surge of brilliance. But the band is young, & at times verging on brilliance, & I’ll definitely be putting the tracks on throughout summer, while waiting for the next bunch with some impatience.
Damo
themumble.uk 