Come Back and Fall in Love with Hinds

graphic by Beyza Durmuş

Hinds is an all-female, garage indie-rock band based in Madrid, Spain. Not only did the foursome break out of the Madrid garage rock scene and become one of the city’s wildest and loudest girl bands, but they did so by dismantling what the conservative rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle resembles, approaching it with romance and psych-pop influences.

The Spanish indie band consists of Carlotta Cosials (vocals, guitar), Ana Perrote (vocals, guitar), Ade Martin (bass, backing vocals) and Amber Grimbergen (drums). After the release of their 2016 debut album, Leave Me Alone, Hinds gained a reputation as a live rock sensation. Since then, Hinds played shows along with The Strokes, Mac DeMarco and The Libertines, becoming the first Spanish band to appear on Glastonbury’s main stages. The foursome infused garage pop in the early stylings of The Velvet Underground and Pixies. 

Hind’s latest installment, The Prettiest Curse, takes a complete turn from their debut and is saturated in the electric pop elements of MGMT, Tame Impala and St. Vincent. As the band’s third studio album, The Prettiest Curse, lives up to all dreamy bedroom pop expectations with its lo-fi undertones and use of drum machines, Curse is charged with an immersive opening bass drum that transitions to a groovy closing fade.

Released on June 5 under Mom + Pop Music records, Curse gained critical acclaim for its experimental tracks and feedback-drenched odes to messy relationships, fuckboys and the band’s personal transgression past the title of “girl band.”

Curse sets to find the “softer, more magical, more filmic” side of a reality that sucks, Cosials said. Hinds challenged the idea that femininity has to be associated with delicacy, and reaffirmed that women in music have the right to be heard and expressive. “We liked thinking that we were going to go against all the rock and roll rules, like ‘live fast, die young,’” Perrote said in her interview with Newsweek. “We’re OK with that. We don’t have to die tomorrow to be cool today.”

With Curse, Hinds wanted their label to know they’re not intimidated by rock ‘n’ roll clichés. "We really wanted the lifestyle that music gives you—the egos, the drugs, the falling in love constantly," said Cosials. The band’s influences range from Bob Dylan, Clash, Creedence Clearwater Revival and The Beach Boys.

In their 2018 interview with Rolling Stone, Cosials said the band doesn’t follow too many rules about music in general. “We know the vocals are pretty fucking loud. We know sometimes it can even sound disturbing. But we like that.”

The opener, “Good Bad Times,” carries glossy, pop undertones with the addition of dream-like synths and piano. Despite the airy sound, Hinds show the vulnerability of serenading their listeners with a relationship gone awry where good memories fade—that even sleeping together feels immemorial. The band slips into their native language of Spanish, which adds notes of familiarity and growing confidence that personifies the band’s emergence of Spanish culture.

“Just Like Kids (Miau)” still maintains the band’s signature aggressive guitar riffs with distorted vocals and growls. The lyrics, “Can I tell you something about you and your band? / Cause I’m sure you’d love to listen to my advice / You’re always out of tune,” plays with a humorous, mocking undertone of the cocktail of sexist remarks the girls have heard from strangers in the industry. The song incorporates attitude-filled vocals that create an expansive stylistic diversity in their sound.

“There are a lot of girls in pop, but pop is about perfection,” said Cosials. “We’re the opposite. We get messages on Instagram from girls–and boys–in their rooms, listening to our songs and just being free. They feel they can do it, too. They see us and see that it’s OK not to be perfect.”

“Come Back and Love Me <3” is another ballad that embraces the band’s full extent of pop prowess and Spanish culture, both musically and lyrically. Opening the song, the acoustic flamenco guitar adds to the somber groove of right person, wrong time. The soft melodies of, “You came at the wrong time / I’m getting stronger about falling apart,” accompany the themes of betrayal, identity struggle and isolation heard throughout the album in songs like “Burn” and “The Play.”

“Sonically, the sound was an accident,” Perrote said. “We suddenly wrote ‘Come Back and Love Me <3’ and were like, ‘Fuck, we just wrote a Spanish ballad romance song!’”

“Boy” is accompanied by lovesick girl group harmonies, which echoes the loneliness of spending six years on the road touring. The girls romanticise accidentally falling in love with a boy while on tour. “Now that we’re chilling on my couch / I don’t wanna lose this feeling / And now accidentally I’m in love / I don’t want to lose this feeling,” allows the band to write about love without a filter. “Boy” combines garage rock infused melodies and blends friendly pop-punk hooks and choruses that make the listeners want to get up and have a pillow fight at a sleepover.

With its deliverance of catchy indie-pop melodies and experimental garage rock, The Prettiest Curse sums up the feelings of falling in and out of love, while searching for personal growth and self-love. Hinds’ latest work is reminiscent of early Strokes records, alongside the punchy indie rock stylings of MGMT. The balance between the band’s signature rock growls to more softer, acoustic Spanish instrumentals shows that Hinds are not a rock act to be messed with.