Album review: Hinds - Leave Me Alone

Yearning for some fuzzy, fizzy, all-femme garage-indie? Find it in spades with this debut, says Stephen Moore.

Hinds are an all-girl quartet who have given the opening salvo of 2016 a shot in the arm with their debut album’s spiky, sprightly guitar-pop.

Simple, slightly off-kilter hooks are the raison d’etre of the four Madrid teenagers, who combine the casual indie-rock confidence and insouciance of Courtney Barnett with the fuzzily lo-fi, jangly guitar appeal of the Velvet Underground.

Stick on the riotous/playful Castigadas En El Granero – roughly translated as Punished In The Barn - Fat Calmed Kiddos or Chill Town and you’ll find an almost eerily perfected youthful exuberance, contrariness and louche lyricism.

Warts is built on a simple lick and ba-da-ba-da vocals that sink into the brain’s pleasure receptors like nicotine.

Meanwhile the ramshackle Bamboo sounds like it was made up on the spot.

I Will Send Your Flowers Back - a sad, angry ball of emotion - is set to lightly-echoed semi-acoustic guitar, seguing into a smoother sign-off that ends with the jauntily scratchy, totally lovestruck Walking Home.

Making simple sound far easier than it is, Hinds are immediate and addictive, making compulsive listening.

It might not be hugely original material, but the girls’ effervescence and perfectly realised garage-indie aesthetic makes this a short, enjoyable blast of fresh air that’s all theirs.

Rating: 3/5 stars