Adult Leisure vent a universal steam on "Kiss Me Like You Miss Her"

When austerity was first foisted on the British public back in 2010, it was sold as a temporary measure, a belt-tightening exercise to give the magic money trees a chance to blossom. Fourteen years on, we're a bruised and bankrupt country classing food banks as a permanent fixture while billionaires get a free pass. It's a point Adult Leisure are determined to hammer home in latest single "Kiss Me Like You Miss Her", a bristling invective on the continued instability and chaos of modern Britain.

Featuring soaring vocals, ringing guitars, and razor-sharp percussion, it's an instantly anthemic offering from the band, who first formed in Bristol in 2020. Starting in lockdown shaped their sound, letting them try something a little leftfield. Rather than honing their songs on stage they focused on production, collaborating with Ollie Searle to tighten up arrangements and perfect that sparkling, addictive sheen. Two years later they released debut EP The Weekend Ritual, quickly followed by 2023's Present State of Joy and Grief.

As with earlier singles "Borderline" and "Bad Idea", this latest track marries a windswept romanticism with twenty-first century real talk. "Kiss Me Like You Miss Her" is rooted firmly in modern anxieties, from rocketing gas bills to the lies of grandstanding politicians. It doesn't pretend to offer a solution, as frontman Neil Scott grimly declares: "If this is living / Then I choose death". Escapist thought they might sound, Adult Leisure's songs belong to the here-and-now.

Adult Leisure's songs have a deceptively glossy, upwardly-mobile sheen, evoking the key players of your parents' state-of-the-art hi-fi unit – The Police, Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel. Acts we once, in our youthful folly, wrote off as guilty pleasures. But influences like The Smiths and The Cure are just as pervasive, not just in the intricate fretwork but in the kitchen-sink poetry of the songs. Not to mention hooks worthy of the Plimsouls.

Their music may have been previously selected for Hotel Chocolat's "Official Velvetiser Soundtrack", but Adult Leisure are under no illusions about the decidely unluxurious times we find ourselves in. "It’s easy to get blindsided and almost complacent with music that tackles social commentary. However, we’ve all had, or still have, ongoing experiences of the damage austerity has caused," they explain. "Having to choose between eating a hot meal or putting £10 on the gas meter takes its toll. We’ve seen it up close in recent memory. It’s so important for these subjects to remain in conversation."

Back in the twentieth century, protest songs tended to be stripped back, rough around the edges, and didn't necessarily sound brilliant blasting out of a yacht. Adult Leisure use their polished production style as a Trojan horse for blistering social critique, demanding a spotlight for the nightmare we've been sleepwalking into. The result is radical power pop for radically disempowered times. Unfortunately, they won't be short of material.