Lust for Life, Or: ‘How To Thread The Needle And Come Out The Other Side To Tell The Story’: Vinyl LP

Label: Lower Third
Release Date: 14th March

Good fun British indie rock fun to be had on Courting's 'Lust for Life, Or...', the Liverpudlian bands third album since 2022 and their best yet. It pulls together elements of punk, post punk, industrial and infectious 00s indie. I can see them just gradually becoming a band that pull together an ever increasing legion of loyal and devout fans. 

Less than a year after their second record, ‘New Last Name’,
Courting return with a leaner, sharper sound, while solidifying
their mischievous genre-blending reputation with eight
meticulously crafted tracks that balance an infectious pop
sensibility with intense, playful experimentation.

After exploring the grand theatrical style of ‘New Last Name’,
this new album marks a shift toward a stripped-back, direct
approach. “We wanted to keep everything incredibly direct - to
hit everyone in the face and leave,” explains vocalist Sean
Murphy-O’Neill. Yet despite its immediacy, the album retains the
band’s characteristic wit, loaded with hidden references, in-
jokes and musical Easter eggs that reflect a true blend of fun
and sophistication.

‘Lust for Life, Or: ‘How To Thread The Needle And Come Out
The Other Side To Tell The Story’’ is centred around duality. The
intention is to bring together everything Courting have created
thus far into a succinct direct record.

Each song on the album is ‘twinned’ with another, existing within
the same type of world. Take for example the opening and
closing bookends of the record, both featuring the same string
melody but with the first serving as an orchestral introduction,
and the second as a speeding dance punk track. Tracks 2 and
tracks 8 interpolate the same drum and string samples but shift
them into completely different beasts. The first sitting
somewhere between 2010’s dubstep and a noise band covering
a small faces track, and the latter being a multi part, auto-tune
crooning ballad with a striking saxophone solo.

The aim is clear as Courting balance the indie and pop
songwriting of their previous records with their most
experimental moments, each detail more refined than the last
time.