Lovejoy’s ‘One Simple Trick’ is a ‘Fatal’ First Impression

In the wake of three EPs and a brief 2024 hiatus, UK-based indie-rock band Lovejoy reemerged with “One Simple Trick” — their first full-length album released Oct. 3.

Could the 11-track debut record spare the band from relentless controversies? Not quite.

Each track on “One Simple Trick” leans heavily on the garage-rock revival sounds of The Strokes and Arctic Monkeys, leaving little room for originality.

Submerged beneath shallow waves of sound, the soft garage-rock-tinged melody of “Baptism” opens the album, faintly rippling across a superficial pool of ambition.

With direct references to baptismal practices and a yearning for salvation, “Baptism” at least manages to introduce listeners to its heavy-handed religiosity — one that feels ill-timed and uncomfortable given lead singer Will Gold’s admission to the abuse of his ex-girlfriend posted on X.

Emerging from the shallow water, “Pay & Display” immediately answers prayers for a song sturdy enough to stand on its own two legs. The ensuing “With Rob As My Witness” follows suit, bathing the album in religious vilification.

With nods to the Middle Age practice of indulgences — the Catholic Church’s use of payments as a remission of sins — “Pay & Display” is absolution through guitar riffs.

“I hope that Heaven’s got a pay n’ display / the blessed always get their way / on a subscription basis / Selling salvation,” Gold sings.

Following the string of repetitive singles “White Shark Cafe” and “Common Touch,” the album’s midpoint eases the tone and loses some momentum.

“Perfect Blue” and “Deathbox” deliver polished, hook-heavy choruses, their drawn-out vocal lines crafted for maximum memorability.

Wedged between the two, “Foxholes” opens with a similar buildup before collapsing into a screamed outro that doesn’t fully commit to its chaos. Muted and restrained, as if someone’s sleeping nearby.

As the debut record draws to a close, “Scoudrels” confirms cliched religious themes and a decade-old sound can only sustain a project so far.

While it channels the grunge of past standalone singles “Normal People Things” and “I’ll Look Good When I’m Sober,” the heightened edge arrives too late, fittingly underscored by Gold’s continued pleas for salvation which sets up an early-yet-appropriate conclusion.

“And I fall, oh, I tend to fall sometimes / Though I’m tall / But I can’t access heaven if I tried / No, I won’t get to heaven in this life,” Gold sings.

Despite serving as the album’s finale, five-minute “Monochrome” isn’t the marriage of loose-ends and ideas it should be. Rather than offering a resolution or a sense of culmination, it abandons the religious themes that had been building, leaving listeners with a flat, anticlimactic conclusion that “Scoundrels” ultimately set up better.

As a whole, “One Simple Trick” feels adrift. Its promising ripples of garage-rock and religious thematics fail to coalesce into a coherent being. While individual tracks occasionally surface with captivating hooks and evocative imagery, the album struggles balancing ambition with execution.
“One Simple Trick” is available on all major streaming platforms.