A Brilliant Debut: A Review of Sea Girls’ Open Up Your Head

Bursting onto the scene only three years ago, Sea Girls are now one of the hottest names in the indie music sphere and, with the help of feel-good singles such as ‘Violet’ and ‘Do You Really Wanna Know?’, the band has already gained multiple plays on the radio. Their debut studio album Open Up Your Head is full of festival ready bangers and certainly lives up to the hype surrounding the London based band. At an almost 50 minute run time, this record from front to back is bursting with indie gems that will soon become classics. The string singles released in anticipation of the record were the perfect taster of what was to come on Open Up Your Head, yet the four-piece, who formed in 2015, still had a few surprises up their sleeves.

Henry Camamile (vocals, guitar), Rory Young (lead guitar), Andrew Noswad (bass), and Oli Khan (drums) have certainly excelled on this new album; all fourteen tracks are just full of flavour and feel incredibly fun, and avoid falling into the trap of producing the same mundane style of song over and over again. With the tour in celebration of this album release having been postponed due to the current pandemic, this selection of songs will have the fans’ mouths watering over what is to come from the bands live show.

‘Transplant’ opens up the album on a dreamy, soft rock note that eases us in gently for the journey ahead. Just picture a nice hot day, beer in hand at Wembley Stadium; this is exactly where this song should be performed. The anthem style chorus on this track already shows a glimmer of where the band are destined to head towards – playing rock shows in front of huge crowds. Frontman Henry Camamile sounds fantastic here, and even shows off the falsetto range he has in his locker as he bares his all whilst reminiscing about a past lover who no longer reciprocates his feelings. Camamile has actually said this song is quite similar to ‘a little film’ due to how each verse describes a different part of the ‘love story’ and is structured like they’re different scenes in a movie.

Taking a step away from the indie-pop sound that the band have nailed, ‘Lie To Me’ has a slightly country twang to it with the presence of the acoustic guitar that’s the central tune of the song. Lyrically this track is another love ballad, but this time takes on the theme of self-deprecation, or, as Camamile has put it “I don’t even care if you don’t love me or whatever, you know, you don’t even have to tell me, just lie to me.”. This style of song may not be what you would typically expect from the four-piece, however, it does seem to work for them and opens up that avenue for them to explore on future releases, if they so desire.

The single ‘Violet’, that also featured on the Under Exit Lights EP earlier this year, is definitely one of the major highlights here on the record. It has all of the elements of the perfect indie song; catchy lyrics, bright, bursting guitars and pulsating drum patterns that all come together to create an infectious jam. After listening to this track you’ll be dying to see the band perform live just so you can mosh along and belt out the lyrics “V-I-Oh my God, Violet.” This is one of the band’s most successful songs to date and has already racked up a tasty 3.5 million streams on Spotify alone. I am sure this will become a fan favourite from the album as well as in the lads live set due to its high rock energy that peaks during the outro – the band just let loose and have fun.

‘Closer’ and ‘Forever’ are two other tracks that deserve your attention and stand out amongst everything else on the tracklist. ‘Closer’ is one of Sea Girls’ older singles and was also featured on the Under Exit Lights EP alongside ‘Violet’. The track was written by lead guitarist Rory Young and it is full of classic indie riffs that make this the perfect summer banger. ‘Forever’ was the last single released before the album dropped and is by far my favourite song Sea Girls have ever put out in the world. The slow, atmospheric build-up erupts into such a euphoric chorus that is full of passion, emotion and is another track on the album that is perfect for an arena or stadium setting. When speaking about the track the band have said “Playing ‘Forever feels incredible. It kinda carries you and feels super important.”

Open Up Your Head showcases all of the bands potential and overall it is an exciting and engaging project. There is definitely room for improvement in a few areas; maybe on some future releases we might see the band tackle other topics other than love, but all in all this album is a great indie record that will be the catalyst for Sea Girl’s imminent success. They are certainly a band to keep an eye out for and if you can get tickets to any of their shows you should snap them up as fast as you can.

Open Up Your Head is available now via Polydor Records. You can watch the video for ‘Violet’ below: