“Rich backgrounds / your rich fuckin’ backgrounds” coos Guildford’s Annabel Allum on her latest single’s deceptively gentle, lulling intro. Ominous as a distant angry black thundercloud on the far horizon of a balmy June day, this is the sound of a pissed-off young lady restraining herself and about to explode…. and in a glorious fission of slacker-rock fuzz-guitars and pounding Grohl-circa-Nevermind tub-thumping, explode she most certainly does.
Of the song, Allum muses: “Rich Backgrounds was the easiest track to write on the EP. It came out in one, which rarely happens for me. It started out as an alcohol-induced jam, it was kind of sarcastic but then I started to find a lot of enjoyment out of playing it. It’s not necessarily ragging on rich people, but more rich attitudes. I wanted to bring those kids back down to earth a bit – yes you may have all the materialistic un-neccessities, but do you have all the un-materialistic necessities? Stripped bare, could you survive? Mental demeanour, a slight bitterness and the idea that paper is not truth.”
It’s genuinely refreshing to hear someone so young – Allum is barely in her 20s – rally against the frivolously entitled in this age of trust-fund rock stars. That she does it with such quizzical innocence and youthful panache (“I eat food from packets / I don’t mind making a racket / When I introduce you to my life / I don’t think you could hack it”) – I’m looking at you, Sleaford Mods – is even more heartening. If this is a taste of things to come, we’ll be ordering another course right away, please.
