★★★☆☆
As expected from the obnoxiously titled Leave Me Alone, Hinds’ debut is brash, raucous and fun. From the slacker blues of ‘Garden’, the all-female quartet, who hail from Madrid, set into a steady guitar-powered groove.
At times, the jangling guitar riffs are pushed right to the forefront of their sound. Elsewhere it is the charming vocal counterpoint between Carlotta Cosials and Ana Perrote that gives the record a hardcore girl-power quality.
Whatever the balance, this guitar-led garage indie manages to retain a purposeful drive whilst somehow also sounding like a ram-shackle collective of teenagers after a few too many cans of Red Stripe. It’s this throwntogether charm which makes the record so endearing.
Highlights include ‘Bamboo’, ï¬rst recorded by Cosials and Perrote as a duo under the name Deers (before Canadian indie-rock group The Dears ï¬led a lawsuit for change), and released on Bandcamp in 2014. Howls of “I want you to call me by my name when I’m lying on your bed” and “I know you’re not hungover today, you are classifying your cassettes” are frank and fearless. These demands and blunt lyrical observations are necessary and downright fun. They may not be a work of lyrical genius, but the production on this record isn’t too clean either. On Leave Me Alone, Hinds are in it for the sheer thrill of it.
