Album Review- Clean Cut Kid

Just bubbling under my Best Albums of 2022 was HISS, the fourth album by Liverpool four piece Clean Cut Kid. I’m never great at describing bands, but looking at Wikipedia, they do fit with the mid-200xs bands that preceded them by a decade like the Fratellis, the Kooks and the Courteeners. Incidentally, I can’t seem to find many reviews of HISS that doesn’t mention one of my favorite artists, Passenger. I don’t really think of Passenger when listening to them though I do occasionally hear a similar song structure, like on opener "Our Wasted Hours". The band definitely follows a thread of Sgt Pepper style pop that has been filtered through the 70s Cat Stevens style songwriter sound. So there is that thread they share with Passenger and I suppose maybe someone like Bon Iver (who is probably the second most referenced band in album reviews). Songs on HISS feel very recognizable. There are moments where they go too whimsical for me but generally that’s the exception.