This ability to transform hard-bitten experience into joyous escapism wouldn’t work if, musically, proceedings weren’t compelling. Thankfully they are because they’re teeming with the best characteristics of other genres – the pace of pop-punk, the braggadocio of rap – and festooned with loveable idiosyncrasies (including what sounds like a sample from the old school Donkey Kong game during I Know Something).
Admittedly, not everything is so revelatory – Super 8’s lyrical fixation with filming porn on the retro 8mm film format being one of them. But for the most part, Stains makes its juggling of identify, ambition, self-belief and self-empowerment seem easy. And it doesn’t scrimp on the tunes either.
Verdict: 4/5
For fans of: Waterparks, Machine Gun Kelly, twenty one pilots
Stains is out now via Hopeless Records.