Elephant - Shooting for the Moon (2023)

It's a struggle to appear as loose as Elephant. After the acclaimed breakthrough album Big Thing (2022), the Rotterdam indie band tackles its own cynicism on the successor Shooting for the Moon with irresistible guitar melodies, steadfast nonchalance and lyrics that make the routine seem a little more romantic. The summer sun shines squarely on the four's noses and they will embrace it, because for them there is nothing as radical as peace and optimism.

With a sold-out club tour, the necessary airplay and the designation 'Promising Talent' from de Volkskrant, 3voor12 and 3FM, you could safely say that Elephant is doing well. Shooting for the Moon is therefore a hopeful album, for which the band enlisted the help of the Flemish singer-songwriter Meskerem Mees and producer Pablo van de Poel (DeWolff), but mainly drew from its own magical four-piece. For a long time, the four of them had mainly been sidemen in other people's projects, but now they suddenly had the entire playground to themselves.

After Big Thing was created in a period full of pandemic uncertainty, the second album reveals liberation and calm. “The sunshine falls upon my face. It's been so long that I felt something so real as I feel right now,” is what he sounds on 'Enemy'. Not the rain, but the blue sky. Not the night, but the morning. This is a close-knit group that wants to make something beautiful at all costs - with the kid gloves of Andy Shauf, the timid stature of Teenage Fanclub and The Feelies and the homely warmth of Wilco.

Not that the cynicism, which Elephant tries to banish before the start of every rehearsal, has completely disappeared. On the opening track the band even goes crazy for a moment: “I hate your post-punk pretensions, your fake English accent,” they sigh. Rest assured, post-punk lovers. There is no aversion to the genre here, but the insecurity and self-development of an ambitious band in bloom, a band that aims for the moon, flies dangerously close to the sun and knows full well how fabulous that sounds.