Hysterical Love Project - February's Album (2026)

Hysterical Love Project's followup to their neo-dreampop modern classic 'Lashes' brings a final gust of warmth as summer comes to an end. It's perfect slowcore pop, ruffled by haunted, blurry memories of '90s rave, trip-hop and backroom ambient biz and hugely tipped FFO: Chris & Cosey, Labradford, City Centre Offices, YL Hooi, DNTEL, Slowdive.

'Lashes' seemed to come out of from nowhere in 2023, fast spreading via word-of-mouth to become one of that year's standout albums. When it finally got its vinyl release a year later, it was already a cult classic. The band is made up of Kiwi producer/engineer Ike Zwanikken and vocalist Brooklyn Mellar, and their latest album refines the formula that made its predecessor so captivating. Where that record played like the duo's direct response to their grab-bag of misty memories - from balearic beaches and sticky '90s dancefloors - 'February's Album' is a more defined set of songs that buries its pinger-powered reflections behind knotted guitar riffs, jangling chords and Mellar's reverb-drenched dreamtime musings.

In fact, HLP make the same connection that bands like Slowdive, Bowery Electric and most obviously, Seefeel, did in the mid-'90s, drip-filtering ideas from across the musical spectrum into songs that sound as if they've evolved directly from The Cure, Talk Talk and Cocteau Twins. Opener 'Perfect Patina' sets the template, with its twanging, chorus-laced guitar phrases and Mellar's gothy narration set against a backdrop of whirring glitches that opens up to let in a faded, syncopated kick. HLP fall at the outer edges of Naarm's current wave of misty-eyed melancholiacs, artists who're just as likely to dip into stylistic tics borrowed fron Andy Stott as Siouxsie Sioux. 'Window Down' is more subtle than anything on 'Lashes', with little more than a rickety guitar line and a bone-dry vocal at first, before Zwanikken and Mellar tease their electronic arrangement oh-so-slowly with soft pads, Guthrie-like background shimmers and a beat that's basically a screwed Jimmy Tamborello.

Their more upfront electronic tracks, like the Newworldaquarium-esque 'Thinking Woman's Lament' and 'Myopia For Kindness', zone into a knackered dub zone that properly realises the dream of witch house, tempered by HLP's quietest, most mercurial production. 'Blonde Feeling' barely passes a whisper and the brief 'Gorse' hardens the album's themes in amber, sounding like a reclaimed demo from the 'Pygmalion' sessions. When it fades into the discreetly epic finale 'The Moraliser', it all sounds meticulously planned, with Zwanikken and Mellar getting their chance to flex, packing 'Sueño Latino' synths, grinding 4/4 kicks and Vini Reilly-strength riffs into seven minutes of bliss.