Rating: 9/10
On Friday, indie rock band Peach Pit released its fourth studio album, “Magpie.” The anticipated album offers a refreshing sound at this point in the band’s career.
A staple of the indie rock scene, Peach Pit has been releasing music since 2017, and its most popular song, “Alrighty Aphrodite,” has amassed over 138 million streams. Now, Peach Pit continues to deliver exciting music with “Magpie.”
Peach Pit is known for its clean tones and smooth guitar licks. This remains true in certain points of “Magpie,” but the album’s strongest points are when the band explores new sounds and interesting effects.
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This record shows an evolution for the band, as distortion and flanger are heavily used in multiple songs, which contrasts with their clean discography.
The intro track, “Every Little Thing,” grounds the listener with the familiar sounds of Peach Pit, but finishes with complex layered guitars. The song starts the album off on an extremely high note and is a mesmerizingly catchy starting point.
“Yasmina” follows and is the first example of its new sound. The signature glossy vocals of Neil Smith lead the song until a roaring guitar solo with heavy distortion finishes the song.
The beginning of the solo is met with screeching feedback as the guitar’s melody takes shape into a loud and charismatic conclusion.
A few songs later comes one of the strongest songs on the album, “Little Dive.” The song plays with the concept of having $20 and highlights various ways to spend this amount of money.
“If you wanna come then let me know/ 20 at the door/ Should we go,” sings Smith, in reference to trying to convince a friend to see a local band at a bar.
The second to last line of every verse mentions $20 being spent on a night out, whether it’s cover, drinks or tickets to see a small local band. An interesting play with structure that is sonically satisfying.
Later on, “St. Mark’s Funny Feeling” opens up with isolated guitars that dance around the tune of the track.
Each chord throughout the song features fragmented riffs which create a colorful and engaging palette. The song emerges into a dreamy wall of guitars that comes with a complete shift into the second part of the song.
Out of this transition, an acoustic guitar and minimal percussion are built up into the final refrain. This track is the peak of the album and fuses both the classic and the transformed sound of Peach Pit.
The title track follows and is the first single released for the album. In the comment section of the official music video, the band went into detail on the inspiration for the song. In Australia, they were surrounded by magpies, which is how Smith found the title for his next single and, eventually, his album.
“I often have the title before I really know what the song will be about,” Smith wrote.
He goes on to explain how the themes for this track are based on the traditional nursery rhyme, “One For Sorrow,” and the sound they attempted to achieve was a “Wings-esque” Paul McCartney vibe.
The final song of the album, “Your Long Black Hair,” is a simple track consisting only of Smith’s vocals and a clean electric guitar. The song is a peaceful ending to a rollercoaster of an album and concludes the spectacular performance from Peach Pit.
Overall, “Magpie” is a thoroughly enjoyable album and definitely stacks up with the rest of Peach Pit’s discography. Each track showcases the band’s unique sound, balancing nostalgia with modern production.
