unpeople have been hard to ignore if you’ve had your ear to the ground, a name on a surprising number of lips for a band without an album out. A really popular presence across the festivals, we are unpeople successfully bottles their live energy and mounting reputation into a great first full-length.

clouds opens the album by cycling through the band’s entire DNA in just over three minutes with harmonies so clean and perfect you’d expect them from Fall Out Boy or New Found Glory next to chunky and colossal breakdowns that absolutely stand up against modern metal. Towards the final chorus the blast beats are nuts, before the final chorus bursts with xylophones and happy harmonies everywhere. friends follows with a riff that’s full of cheeky bounce, and Jake Crawford’s passionate scream is completely in line with the best British post-hardcore. The ideas are crammed in relentlessly with catchy hooks, creative riffs and structural surprises, making music that’s poppy and radio-friendly but also extremely heavy. the garden is built on a huge stomping riff, and where other bands would use guitar solos to show off unpeople use vocal harmonies stacked like a choir, bursting into sunlit passages where all four voices come together, even if just for a note or a bar, making a noise all as one before going off on their journeys. unpeople’s na-na-na vocals are very much a hallmark, and it’s remarkable for a band this new to have so many tricks that are so uniquely theirs, and such a clearly defined identity. blueprints finally takes the pedal off the gas, waste is beautifully bouncy, and as you were closes the album with a big dynamic range that’s gleefully cheesy. unpeople sound like they’re aiming for the stadiums they’re clearly heading towards, with an incredible opening statement.