Opal Mag shares debut EP ‘Goodbye Lavender’
The Brighton-based musician drops a dazzling first effort.
Photo: Johnny Stanley
As far as debuts go, Goodbye Lavender is an absolute indie pop tour de force. It is full of super lean and gloriously catchy pop songs performed with such frantic fun and energy. These are songs that are direct, immediate and simply impossible not to fall in love with. They are packed with everything that makes indie pop songs so much fun: loud guitars, crashing drums, shiny synths, sugar-sweet choruses, heavenly harmonies and tons of raucous, fervent energy.
Opener World End is an infectious slice of Olivia Rodrigo-inspired pop rock that kicks the EP off in blistering fashion. If you don’t fall for Goodbye Lavender after World End, then you’re just clearly not playing it loudly enough.
Try Not To Hate Everything only takes things up a notch and culminates in a cry of “shut the hell up!” that is just begging to be screamed aloud by a room full of strangers. These songs are going to do a lot of damage to a lot of people’s vocal cords in dark, sweaty clubs over the next year.
Lead single Kiss Me, like the EP as a whole, wastes no time whatsoever as it explodes into life right away. The chuggy guitars in the verses crescendo into bright, sunny explosions during the chorus. It isn’t just the chorus that is infectious; each and every line in this song is just so damn catchy.
Young Forever and the title track are more acoustic-based changes of pace to close out the EP. They’re slower and sound dreamy and cinematic in much the same way as some of Chappell Roan’s more recent singles. Their change of pace proves that Opal Mag is versatile and capable of firing off sweet, catchy songs in a multitude of different ways. One thing stays the same throughout all of these songs. They all build to cathartic, liberating and impossible to resist outros. It isn’t enough to give us massive choruses; the bridges and verses on these songs conspire to always take things up a notch.
Goodbye Lavender is an absolute mountain of fun. Its songs stick to your brain like superglue. They are made to be screamed aloud. They are hard not to fall in love with. It is simply full of whirling cacophonies of choruses and outros that swirl around in your head for days. If this is where Opal Mag is starting, then I really can’t wait to see where she ends up.
Goodbye Lavender is out now via Venn Records.
