In the past couple of years, 90s-inspired guitar music has made an extensive comeback with today’s youth, and Julie is one of the most talked about and exciting bands to come out of this era of shoegaze/ grunge revival. Since the release of the band’s first single, Flutter, in 2020, Julie has had a massive explosion in popularity that led to the band opening for bands such as the Foo Fighters, Alex G and Faye Webster, as well as racking up millions of listens on Spotify and apple music. This put a lot of eyes on Julie, and, I’m sure, made the band feel the pressure and the expectations from fans and critics expecting a full-length album from them right away. Aside from last year’s single Catalogue, the band has been rather quiet in the midst of its newfound popularity. While most bands would do anything to maintain their popularity, Julie was in no rush. Instead, they were focused on one thing: making the exact album they wanted to make and, to a significant effect, accomplishing that exactly on my anti-aircraft friend.

During this album’s half-decade process, the band has evolved their songwriting into a much more mature and experimental realm. Operating in a world of revivalism, there are few bands that maintain authenticity within their sound. Although Julie is known to tip their hats to their influences, such as bands like Mad Planets, Sonic Youth, and the Swirlies, they have fallen into their own niche with this album. The emotive busyness from Dillon Lee’s drumming has seeped a lot more into the songwriting on these songs than the band’s past material, which is seen in the impressive and expressive use of shots and tempo changes in the songs. This album’s Production choices feel minimalist and raw, catching the band in their most honest and crushing performances. Although after a few listens, the production fits the songs very well, it caught me off guard entirely during the first listen as I was surprised at how loud and compressed it sounded. The opening to this album starts with the explosive first single, Catalogue, which fits into the album perfectly with its loud chorus, quiet verse dynamics, and blaring use of distortion. On tenebrist, the crushing saturation from guitarists Keyan Pourzan and bassist Alexandria Elizabeth comes blasting underneath some of Keyan’s strongest vocal performances on the record.

The following two tracks very little effort and clairbourne practice are both perfectly palatable while also being some of the band’s most elaborate and dense examples of their songwriting to date. With clairbourne practice for instance there is a point near the end of the song where they play with the shots on different measures of the beat in a way that throws you off yet still keeps the listener engaged. The energy switches on knob to a drowsier and sadder place but quickly evolves to its absolutely massive-sounding chorus and outro section. The wonderfully janky intro riff of thread stitch had me engaged right from the beginning and has a nice Alex G inspired vocal melody in the verse sections. It transitions nicely into another absolute banger feminine adornments, which has an infinitely catchy chorus and some perfect shoegaze guitar playing. I’ll cook my own meals is another moody and heavy track from Keyan. Not an overtly exciting song in the tracklist, but is followed by one of the best moments on the record, the sonic youth-esque ninth track piano instrumental. The momentum this track builds is insane, and its unpredictable hills and valleys feel very new in Julie’s songwriting and are very impressive to hear on this album.

The energy changes on the final track stuck in a car with angels to a much more sombre and intimate place where it is just guitar bass and alexandria’s stunning vocal performance. The song builds and builds to its explosive ending where alexandria continues to sing the same chorus melody but over reverb laden bending guitar lines and chaotic drums. A stellar finish to an excellent debut album.

pre-order my anti-aircraft friend by Julie HERE