The Vegan Leather - Poor Girls / Broken Boys (2019)

ENTERING the world of The Vegan Leather is an all-consuming experience; it’s a place defined by glittering melodies, pulsing rhythms and the kind of deliriously punchy disco punk-pop that makes you never want to get off your feet. From the moment they first came together in 2014, the Paisley quartet have been casually redefining the parameters of their music with unbridled creativity and a refreshing eccentricity and it all comes to fruition on their meticulously crafted debut album ‘Poor Girls/Broken Boys’.

The album is as much a heady dose of escapism as it is a reflection on the tumultuous times we live in. With themes of social anxiety and female struggle at the heart of many songs, the band explore a number of dualities; light and dark, love and lies, anxiety and euphoria, pitching their dark, often introspective lyrical themes against a swirl of vibrant, upbeat art-pop. Recorded with Paul Savage at the revered Chem19 Studios in Blantyre (The Twilight Sad, Mogwai, Franz Ferdinand), it’s a case of music and words working seamlessly together with the producer giving their playful and poppy arrangements a revitalised energy, all while retaining the relentless infectiousness that brought them onto our radar in the first place.