Kindsight - No Shame No Fame (2024) Hi-Res

Dynamically balancing melody and fuzzy guitar volume, Kindsight's second album demonstrates an audible rise in the Danish quartet's confidence level. Everything down to the title has a sharper focus than on their excellent 2022 debut, Swedish Punk: Johannes Jacobsen's drums are louder, the overall mix is edgier, and the vocals by Nina Hyldgaard Rasmussen gleam with polish and passion. The storming opener "Acid Island 45" sets a convincing punkier tone and "Love You Baby All The Time" is a pop bullseye with an irresistible hook. "Tomorrow" features Rasmussen's sweet ringing voice gently cascading down a long chorus of "Whatever I do here tomorrow/ Trying to act like I don't care/ My life is borrowed/ I pretend."

Kindsight are accomplished creators of driving, fuzzy janglers who wisely season their catchy confections with cryptic lyrics, like on the bouncy "Top Ten Things You Need in the City." Rasmussen sings, "A couple pocket eggs/ For the idiots on the streets/ Not another beer/ Don't make me get another beer" before adding the self-explanatory punchline, "The top ten things you need in the city/ Train tickets heading out of the city."

In "Killing Eye"—a quiet, strummed duo between Rasmussen and guitarist Søren Svensson—the semantic clouds part as the lyrics turn suddenly insightful, "I was pocket change you know/ Passed around a million times/ Roadside vines, the city reef/ Makes something old grow inside." A starker, decidedly more shoegaze bent develops as disparate pieces mesh uneasily in "Madhouse Breakout Multitool," a story of an emotional skedaddle. No Shame, No Fame was recorded with producer Joakim Lindberg, who keeps edges sharp at the Studio Sickan in Malmo, Sweden (just across the bridge from Copenhagen), the band tracked this collection live in the studio, deeming the excited studio spontaneity heard in the opener a "bubble rush." Fizzy and eager, Kindsight's future grows brighter.