Hinds - The Prettiest Curse (LP) - Baby Blue Vinyl

Hinds have always felt like the friend who talks you into a late train ride to the beach, armed with cheap speakers and a bag of gummy worms. The Prettiest Curse keeps that spirit, then turns the dial toward sparkle and bite. It is the Madrid quartet’s third album, and the one where the scrappy charm of their early garage fuzz meets a pop sensibility that actually fits them. The songs are tighter, the choruses bigger, and the voices of Carlotta Cosials and Ana Perrote sit right in front where they belong. You still get the tangled guitars and loose-limbed rhythm section that made them so loveable, but now it hits with a new clarity.

The leap is obvious from the opening singles. “Riding Solo” bounces with a touring-band heartbeat, restless and jet-lagged, yet strangely euphoric. “Good Bad Times” turns relationship whiplash into a sugar rush, the kind of earworm that sounds like summer bus windows cracked open. Hinds once tucked their hooks under blankets of reverb; here they let them breathe. Ade Martin’s bass lines curl around Amber Grimbergen’s drums with more space and punch, and the guitars cut cleaner without losing their ragged smiles. The harmonies carry new confidence, often layered up like they were daring the room to catch them.

Their personality sits loudest in “Just Like Kids (Miau),” a barbed sing-along pieced from real-life condescension they’ve dealt with as women in a band. The punchlines land because the delivery is playful, almost teasing, even when the message stings. It is protest by way of a gang chorus, proof that humor can be a sharper weapon than a lecture. Just as striking is “Come Back and Love Me, Baby,” a bilingual swoon that folds Spanish lyrics into their palette with an ease that feels overdue. The switch between languages gives the melody fresh angles, and it underlines something this album gets right: Hinds sound most like themselves when they stop sanding off the edges.

If you came in through Leave Me Alone or I Don’t Run, the new sheen might surprise you. The Prettiest Curse is still lo-fi at heart, but it trades slapdash for confidence. The guitars are more melodic than messy, the vocals sit high in the mix, and little details pop out on repeat listens, like chiming counter-melodies or handclaps tucked into a bridge. It is not a sellout move, just a band letting its songwriting carry more of the weight. The hooks were always there. Now they just shine.

Context gives it an extra kick. The album rolled out in 2020, a year when tours evaporated and the usual victory lap was impossible. That forced stillness makes the record’s energy feel defiant. Critics picked up on the shift right away, praising the bolder sound and the way the band wrote through the noise without losing their mischief. Fans did too. At shows that followed, the new songs slotted into the set like longtime staples, a good sign that growth landed where it should.

On vinyl, the record plays like a tiny living-room gig that somehow fills the whole flat. The choruses lift, the guitars have air, and those shared vocals wrap the room in a way digital sometimes flattens. If you are hunting The Prettiest Curse vinyl, jump on it. Hinds vinyl tends to disappear faster than you expect, and it is the kind of album that rewards a side A, flip, side B ritual. You could buy Hinds records online from your usual spots, or keep it local and ask your Melbourne record store to order a copy. Folks browsing for vinyl records Australia will find this a sunny, sturdy spin that sits nicely next to your indie pop and garage favorites. If you collect Hinds albums on vinyl, this one feels essential.

What makes The Prettiest Curse stick is how human it is. The songs move like stories told after midnight, jokes hiding nerves, bravado covering bruises. Carlotta and Ana trade lines like friends finishing each other’s sentences, Ade and Amber keep the floor bouncing, and the whole thing feels lived-in. Hinds have always offered a good time. Here, they offer a good time with a little extra grit and a lot more color. That is a trade any fan should take, needle down, volume up.