Girl Scout pull back from the edge of conformity on debut Brink

They do so by referencing the zenith of 90s jangle-pop and elements of the Cranberries’ cathartic output to engineer a scuzzy alt-rock coded exploration of ennui, parallel possibilities and existential longing amidst the flux of upbringing.

Since their inception six years ago, the Swedish trio have established a solid footing in alternative circles via a lauded debut EP, with Soccer Mommy producer Ali Chant on board, and a much-vaunted European tour with Canadian indie stalwarts Alvvays. Formed during their days as students of jazz at Stockholm’s Royal College of Music, lead vocalist and guitarist Emma Jansson alongside Per Lindberg, on drums, and bassist Kevin Hamring, have coalesced around a commonality of wandering identity and reinterpretation of personal pasts through an equally non-linear blurring of electro-pop and alternative tropes, tacitly pushing back at staid genre expectations.

Where previous EP Headache left off in dichotomous fashion, Brink finds the band crystallising formative flashbacks though the lens of shared values gleaned from a liminal sense of identity, continuing to mesh the bittersweet nature of memories with effervescent, at times volatile guitar rock. This is none more so evident as on lead-single “Same Kids” in cutting to the core of friendship circles that eschew the crowd and pressures to conform: “Cut the fake shit / Til we’re grown / Playing records we were always in the zone / We can make it on our own”. Set to kinetic guitar hooks and sugar-coated synth segues, Jansson charts a raucous yet tender vocal performance to champion the album’s central ambiguities.

“Keeper” gears up to opulent Tycho-tinged synth peaks, deploying a curveball Killers-esque electro-ballad that fits into the polar opposing ambitions involved, the heartland rock of “Uh-Huh” further mirrors the eclecticism at play – with Jansson’s charisma underscored by sprawling reverb-drenched guitar croons, delivering a grandiosely melancholic sense of scale. “Operator” skews between Elastica’s spiky Britpop and pared-back early-80s new wave, the Pavement-like nonchalant heart of “Simple Life” straddles with sarcastic edge; whereas “Ugly Things” speaks to the album’s crux of ambivalence and the value found in quirks and idiosyncrasies, finding beauty in relationships against the humdrum backdrops of “glass and pebbles and stone”.

Crowning a trilogy of evocative EPs, Brink is a confident, sonically varied example of a band unafraid to take a step back and reevaluate their own history through the openness of their lyrics. Taking their cues from alternative sub-genres of the last thirty to forty years, Girl Scout offer their own self-effacing contribution to infectiously febrile effect.