Rating: 7.5/10

Jack Antonoff, alongside producer Sounwave and singer Sam Dew after two months of teasing and releasing sporadic singles, have released a self-titled project as the new pop outfit, ‘Red Hearse’.

Last month I highlighted the group’s promising first few singles, in particular the track ‘Half Love‘, which opens up the album. The song sets the tone for the album: being a catchy synth-laden tune carried expertly by the brilliant falsetto singing of Sam Dew.

Throughout the album, the vocals of Sam Dew are impeccable. His falsetto works perfectly over the bass-heavy chorus of ‘Violence‘ and the harmonies on the track ‘Honey‘ just work perfectly, and the vocal layering on the album’s closer ‘Blessin’ Me‘ are actually pretty moving.

My favourite track has to be ‘Everybody Wants You‘. It is a beautifully constructed song. The simple synth instrumental builds as the track progresses, the layered harmonies during the chorus emotively set the tone of the track and best of all it’s also catchy.

Given Antonoff’s extensive production discography and four Grammy awards, it should have been obvious that this project would be so good as he’s just incredibly skilled at making music. That said, I still found myself impressed that this project just works so well and is so different from any other pop music being made at the moment.

My only criticism of the project is that there’s not much depth to it. Obviously pop music doesn’t need to be really deep and meaningful all the time, but with only 8 songs on the album, they all kind of follow the same pattern and message. However, I think I’ll let Red Hearse off this time, as I think my criticism is more just bitterness that we’ve only been given 8 songs and there’s sadly no promise that this group will make any more music together.