And so we go. Acoustic ballad Everything I Cannot Live Without boasts big Aberdeen 1987 vibes, just with 15 years more bittersweetness slipped between its fragile chords. There’s a knowing swagger about poppy highlight Lovesick that seems to revel in that euphoric butterflies-in-the-stomach feeling while wryly wearing the emotional scars it so often pre-empts. Lust In Translation loads up a drum & bass breakbeat with as much angst as it can handle. My Friends Forever uses a gorgeously slow, jazzy composition as a vehicle for memories of ‘the way you had my back when I started a scrap with a stranger’ and ‘the bar we used to go to that’s haunted with the memory of someone I want to forget.’
Like the very youth it seems to be chronicling, Learning How To Live And Let Go flies by in a blur, blindsiding with the contemplative poignancy of arms-round-shoulders closer It Ain’t Easy. It’s proof that as much as we all need to grow up someday, that’s no reason to let go. And that, no matter where they head from here, The XCERTS are one of the defining Britrock outfits of their generation.
Verdict: 4/5
For fans of: Twin Atlantic, Jimmy Eat World, Dinosaur Pile-Up
Learning How To Live And Let Go is released on August 18 via UNFD