Lust for Life, Or: 'How To Thread The Needle And Come Out The Other Side To Tell The Story'

On their third album, Liverpudlian boys Courting continue to invite favorable comparisons to UK pop-rock phenoms The 1975. They both have an obvious predilection for long album titles, and Lust for Life’s bait-and-switch opening tracks—the orchestral place-setting of “Rollback Intro” followed by the rude rave music of “Stealth Rollback”—is practically and lovingly ripped from Matty Healy and George Daniel’s playbook. But pithy comparisons otherwise elude Courting’s delightful multifariousness as they smash a brief interpolation of Belle and Sebastian’s “Get Me Away from Here, I’m Dying” turducken-style into the upbeat jangle of “Namcy” and follow the snarling alt-rock of “After You” with a six-minute odyssey of a title track that includes multiple suites and heavy vocal processing. Courting is the type of band to try anything once and immediately knock it out of the park.