Released: October 4, 2024, New Friends music.
Producer: Tom Stafford, Peter Miles
Vinyl Price: £27.99 (HMV, Blue Vinyl)
Dublin-born Orla Gartland’s second studio album, Everybody needs a Hero, highlights the power of lyricism within modern music, showcasing electric highs and crushing lows.
Gartland’s career as a singer/songwriter has been the dominant force for much of her teenage and adult life, with her first songs uploaded on Youtube in 2008 at the age of 13. At the age of 15, Gartland released her first single “Postcards”, and by 17 she embarked on a headline UK and Ireland tour. At 29, Gartland now sits with numerous achievements: a No.1 debut album (2021’s Woman on the Internet), a feature on the hit Netflix show Heartstopper with her song ‘Why am I Like This?’, and an upcoming US headline tour.
Gartland’s sophomore album, Everybody Needs a Hero?, has been an undeniable triumph in an area where indie bands have often struggled, replicating a recognizable sound whilst attempting to grow artistically. This artistic growth is encapsulated through Gartland’s sharp, witty and interrogative lyricism throughout the album, with highly emotive and deeply moving lyrics intermingled with electric and motivational ones, representing a musician grappling with one’s own identity.
Simply reading the tracklist of Gartland’s sophomore album would allow the listener enough of an insight into the album’s sharp lyricism, with track titles such as “SOUND OF LETTING GO”, “Little Chaos”, “Kiss Ur Face Forever” and “Mine” becoming balladic reflections on womanhood and anxiety.
Yet, Gartland consistently challenges the listener through her lyricism, never allowing one to simply settle into the groove of a certain sound. Furthermore, she successfully transcends her own genre through drastic tonal shifts throughout the album, leaping from songs such as “Kiss Ur face forever”, a reclamation of guitar music reminiscent of People by The 1975, to “Who am I?”, a softer, more lyrically driven song which questions identity within relationships, as shown through the final lyrics; “If I’m your everything then, who am I?”.
The tonal and genre-leaping nature of Gartland’s album was addressed in a piece by NME, who noted how the album has “Kasabian and Royal Blood-adjacent rock”, whilst still displaying “Lovely lifting indie a la Clairo or Beabadoobee”; citing significant, pertinent names within both Modern Rock and Indie music.
Since its release, the album has forged its own identity within the modern indie scene, reflecting parallels to Clairo’s Charm released in July 2024. At its core, Everybody Needs a Hero is a reflection upon anxiety, modern relationships and womanhood, yet it is also so much more. It offers advice to the listener, whilst simultaneously questioning their decisions, it draws the listener into a sense of comfort then shifts genre completely.
Yet, perhaps most importantly, Everybody Needs a Herois a statement of intent from Gartland, whose rise to stardom can only be described as meteoric. Indie artist Declan Mckenna’s feature on the album (Life of the Party) represents the strength of Gartland’s contacts within the industry, placing herself alongside the modern canon of indie stars..
Lyric of the Week: “My Parachute has come untied”
In an album with so many pertinent and reflective lyrics, this one really stuck with me as a representation of Gartland’s transgressive and transcendental leap into modern indie stardom.