Beach Bunny: Emotional Creature | 4ZZZ Brisbane 102.1FM

- Chicago based indie rock four-piece Beach Bunny have enjoyed a massively successful past few years, skyrocketing to the tops of indie charts thanks to their '90’s garage band sound and visuals and Lili Trifilio’s unmistakable vocals. Despite often being dismissed as just another TikTok band, Beach Bunny found their footing long before finding success on the app, their 2018 hit Prom Queen reaching two million views on YouTube in only a few months.

Their second studio album Emotional Creature is an explosion of vulnerability. As expected from the title, each song is an exploration of emotions in a very teenaged sort of way: it’s no wonder they connect so well with young people online. The tracks have simple, heart on the sleeve type lyrics, with no shame or limit to their exposure on the good and the bad of being, or being perceived as overly emotional. In the opening track Entropy, Trifilio states “somebody’s gonna figure me out… and I hope they do.” The line repeats in the chorus, and is a definite emotional core of the entire album.

Oxygen, the first single off the album, is a standout. It’s pure joy, and a perfect encapsulation of young love and infatuation. “Suddenly everything is easy / I’ve never felt something so deeply / Cause with you I can breathe again.” It does what Beach Bunny has always done incredibly well: distilled massively overwhelming feelings into a cute, dreamy and fun track that feels like falling in love.

Gravity and Infinity Room are both uncharacteristically short, just over a minute in length each. Gravity acts as an interlude, a fully instrumental synthwave amongst the wall of pop-rock that came before it. It leads into Scream, the album’s only other track with an '80's synth-inspired soundscape. Its placement in the track-listing is perfect, breaking up their usual sound that’s all too familiar with their fans.

Emotional Creature shows off Trifilio’s talent for song writing and tapping into the feelings that are too big to contain. With a fanbase these days consisting of teenagers and young people, it’s no wonder her lyrics and sound are resonating with their audience.

- Alison Paris.