Fast forward to 2023, and the Hoosiers are about to release their best ever album. But why now? “Possibly as a by-product of having nearly lost the opportunity to play music again in lockdown,” says Irwin, “Al and I find ourselves more in love with each other, the band and making music with each other in this particular band than ever before.” Thank God, I hear you cry, because Confidence really is a revelation. Produced by Sam Miller, who mixed the first album, and recorded at Angelic Recording Studios – the line-up in the studio is completed by Leighton Allen on bass, and Paul Frith on keyboards – Confdence kicks off – after the brief, instrumental flurry of Welcome To Confidence – with the Metronomy/Daft Punk-tinged (no, really) Making A Monster, an extraordinary song (with brass courtesy of Old Dirty Brasstards) each verse featuring another lover's side of the story, a fabricated romantic impasse, where both parties are gaslighting, both twisting events. After that, lead single Hello Sunshine is a Sparks/Feeling-type affair about fighting to see the positive, and avoid being dragged down by a loved one's darker tendencies, whilst Idaho is effortlessly fabulous, and the least balladic murder ballad about covering up a crime and laying plans to live a wonderful, normal life, you could find - this side of Bonnie & Clyde, or True Romance. Up next, the impossibly-catchy erotomania anthem, G.O.A.T. sets us up for the gorgeous Lip Sinking – about lying to other people, by telling them what you think they want to hear. The latter is utterly beguiling, of course, like Fountains of Wayne at their dreampop best.
