Review
Review
Album Review: Flasher – Love Is Yours
The D.C. duo bring out a brighter pop sensibility on their sophomore record
Flasher emerged in 2016 as one of D.C. post-punk label Sister Polygon‘s new darlings, nodding heads with their grizzly, punchy sound. Melody soon began to take the space of snarl, though, culminating in their compelling debut two years later, Constant Image.
The trio soon became a duo, however, with bassist Daniel Saperstein leaving Emma Baker and Taylor Mulitz to go at it alone. In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, the partnership describe what felt like an identity crisis after Saperstein’s departure, but the ennui of 2020 soon spurred both on to take on a greater role.
The result is Love Is Yours, Flasher’s second full-length, out today on Domino Records. Its title track does well to reflect the shift in the record’s sound, itself a kind of lo-fi dance-punk bop that later paves the way for the indie-disco of ‘Sideways’ and playful electronica of ‘Pink’.
This isn’t a complete rewriting of the band, but even when crossing the more familiar ground of slacker rock (‘All Day Long’) or atmospheric shoegaze (‘Dial Up’), there is a more melodic and pop sensibility at its heart. The guitars on ‘Still Life’ seem to glisten in texture and fill space that seemed to exist as a trio when confined to their set roles, whilst the depressing admission of ‘Living Is So Hard Lately’ on ‘I’m Better’ seems to get swallowed whole by its irresistibly bittersweet chorus.
