Review Summary: Just let me dream a little more.
On the early morning of March 27th, 2019, Stephen Fitzpatrick and Audun Laading, the duo that comprised the indie pop band Her’s, were killed in a head-on collision while traveling to a Santa Ana, California to perform a show that night. Their tour manager, Trevor Engelbrekston, who was driving their tour van at the time of the crash, along with the driver of the Nissan pick-up truck that had been driving the wrong way and collided with them, Francisco Rebollar, lost their lives as well. The tragedy extinguished the light and rise of a band that seemed destined to find themselves amongst the next wave of up-and-coming darlings within the indie space.
Her’s formed in 2015 while Fitzpatrick and Laading attended the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, releasing their first single, “Dorothy,” the following year. A compilation album was shortly packaged thereafter in the form of Songs of Her’s, most notably known for the song “What Once Was,” which features a unique, warm blend of bedroom pop and jangle pop that counteracts against the weightiness of grief and yearning that is explored within Fitzpatrick’s lyrics. Off the strong reception of this compilation, the duo released their debut album, Invitation to Her’s, in the summer of 2018, the timing of which couldn’t have been more fitting given the overall aesthetic and timbre packed into this catchy collection of songs.
While one wouldn’t be faulted in finding Invitation to Her’s a tad too sugary to the point of it bordering on sounding near cartoonish, for someone like me who typically gravitates towards sadder pieces of music more times than not, an album like this serves as a much needed reprieve and palette cleanser from time to time. These songs swoon with a youthful vibrancy that is nostalgic and downright beguiling, fluttering with this almost adolescent, worry-free sensitivity thanks to Fitzpatrick's ever-morphing vocals, Laading’s buoyant and playful basslines and the clatter of the group’s accompanying drum machine. From the bubble-gum flavor of “Harvey,” and the tropically-tinged “Manny’s Smile,” to the gloaming slinkiness of “She Needs Him” and the jittery “Love on the Line (Call Now),” it’s difficult to not get swept up in the dreaminess of it all and suppress a smile from creeping across your face.
In light of the tragedy that ultimately claimed the lives of Fitzpatrick and Laading, Invitation to Her’s summons a bittersweet reaction, knowing that this is the final release from two friends who were hitting their strides as songwriters and distinguishing themselves from their contemporaries. While we will never know the heights they might have reached, their legacy has been cemented with this bouncy, infectious gem of an album that feels like a twinkle in your eye.
