Words Chiara Strazzulla
Photo by Kiera Simpson
One of the fireproof signs of being confronted with a band whose parable is worth watching is the presence of a steadily mounting buzz surrounding it, not exploding seemingly out of nowhere and mounting from one to one thousand within a matter of weeks, but resulting from the genuine enthusiasm of people who walked into a live gig and came out of it with a new favourite. Having witnessed precisely this happening more than once at Prima Queen’s live outings - including, most challenging of all, in festival settings - it hardly comes as a surprise that they are now making increasingly tall waves as they move towards the release of their debut long player. Already in 2023 the indie rock outfit - a joint venture of Bristol’s Louise Macphail and Chicago’s Kristin McFadden, aided in their live appearance by an impressive line-up of musicians - had snatched a finalist’s place in Glastonbury’s Emerging Talent Competition, but it is truly the love of the audiences that is giving Prima Queen their crown, most lately by selling out their London headliner show this coming October.
The band is a perfect example of a very specific type of quirky indie rock which has been emerging more and more strongly in recent years within a scene that had been for a while bogged down with depressingly samey sounds. Ever more ballad-centric and shoegaze-oriented, the British indie scene was in sore need of some innovation, which has increasingly been coming in the form of hybridisation with more off-centre harmonisations and a rediscovery of retro atmospheres: faster tempos, a bit of distortion sprinkled here and there, an occasional flirt with psychedelia, a greater playfulness in the vocals are all ingredients that have marked the success of the most interesting indie rock offerings of the last few years, coming from bands such as Fling, Fraulein, and FEET - the latter two, not coincidentally, currently signed with Submarine Cat Records, the same label under which the Prima Queen album is now to be released. The same brand of innovation is distinctly present in our first taste from the new record, a quick and focussed track which bounces straight in with a very distinctive hook which has more than a touch of the Seventies to it, then incorporates chord sequences which are taken straight from classic pop and given new purpose. The American influence is heard more strongly in this song than in some of the band’s other offerings, particularly in the treatment of the vocals, which incorporate here and there a slightly rougher edge which is almost pop-punk in nature.
Fool is a song about being in love with someone whose avoidant nature makes a successful relationship almost impossible, but it is no wistful ballad. On the contrary, even when it incorporates a clear longing (and, it could be argued, an equally clear frustration), it manages to always maintain that bouncy rhythm that is distinctive to Prima Queen’s voice and that makes them such an effective live act. That is not to say that it’s not a moving or emotional track: there is a refreshing sincerity of feeling in the lyrics, which are fine-tuned to include some striking imagery (‘standing in the rain with your birthday cake’ is such a sharp, effective vignette that it conveys in one line the exact nature of the situation and the glut of heavy, painful feelings it carries with it), and in the delivery of the vocals, which know when it is the right moment to be just that little less exact, ever so slightly deliberately off-kilter so that emotion can shine through. The chorus is broad enough for this to be the kind of liberating sing-along track that gets played towards the end of a live set and gets the whole room involved, and the well-timed brushes of guitar seeping in at regular intervals give it the additional edge required for a track that doesn’t shy away from channelling hopelessness but doesn’t want to get mired in it either.
Perhaps a little ironically, releases like this are the best possible proof that the situation for British indie is, in fact, not hopeless at all. It is true that the scene has been in need of a shake-up; for a few years now there’s been a growing sense that the shake-up is coming, and bands like Prima Queen are now finally delivering it. They may not be - or not be yet - as big as other artists who have taken the scene seemingly by storm, but they clearly have greater lasting power, they know very well what their voice sounds like, and they’re not scared of playing around with elements which are far from the remit of the usual indie fare. They are sincere in their storytelling and precise in their craft, and their ability to draw influences from both the British and American scene gives them a cosmopolitan vibe that comes across especially strongly in tracks like this. Fool goes through a fair few changes of pace in its mere three minutes forty of duration; it is a pocket rollercoaster of a track, mirroring the emotional rollercoaster of its subject matter. To deliver that requires a command of craft that can only be achieved by doing the legwork of honing a live sound down to its finest details before getting to the studio and finally translating that sound to a record. Prima Queen, that much is abundantly clear, has put in that work. They’ve shown it time and again on stage and they’re showing it again with this single release, striking a near-perfect balance of quirky and classic that is a great match for their overall aesthetic. If you’re putting together a list of indie rock releases to eagerly await in 2025, you would do very well to place this Prima Queen long player very near the top.
Prima Queen Online
Live Dates
9th October - St Pancras Old Church, London (sold-out)
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