Album of the Week: I Love You So F***ing Much - Glass Animals

Coming as a surprise to absolutely nobody, this weeks Album of the Week is none other than I Love You So F***ing Much by Glass Animals which I have not stopped listening to since it was released last Friday. In short, I'm obsessed.

Tracklist

1. Show Pony
2. whatthehellishappening?
3. Creatures of Heaven
4. Wonderful Nothing
5. A Tear in Space (Airlock)
6. I Can't Make You Fall in Love Again
7. How I Learned To Love The Bomb
8. White Roses
9. On the Run
10. Lost in the Ocean

I Love You So F***ing Much serves as indie band Glass Animals' fourth studio album following their last release, Dreamland in 2020. As the name suggests, all of the songs on the album deal - in one way or another - with the theme of love, in both conventional and unconventional ways.

The album starts with 'Show Pony', which frontman Dave Bayley has described as the "table of contents" for the album. It describes a naïve ideation of love which transforms into a more realistic scene that sets us up for the album which shows both the passion but also the dark sides of love that are left out of the films.  

'Creatures in Heaven' and 'A Tear in Space (Airlock)' deal with the traditional sense of love, the vulnerability, the passion, the all-consuming need to shape yourself to fit the person you love. 'whatthehellishappening?' is in a similar vein, and although at the forefront it's a song about being kidnapped, between the lines it talks about learning to go along with love, even if its just enjoying the freedom of being brought along for the ride.

Things take a turn with tracks like 'Wonderful Nothing', 'How I Learned to Love the Bomb' and 'On the Run' which all take a darker approach to love: Wonderful Nothing exploring hate and the love that exists within hate; How I learned to Love the Bomb delving into the fear of getting to know someone and the person they truly are; and On the Run deals with the urge to run from love.

With 'I Can't Make You Fall In Love Again' and 'White Roses', both voices of unrequited love echo each other, with the former lingering on the feeling of not being able to change someone else's feelings about you and the latter about not having feelings for someone you want to love.

The album is wrapped tightly in the safety of the vintage love melody of 'Lost in the Ocean' which reassures us that despite how entwined love is with all these ugly feelings that love is love and in the end everything  turns out okay. "you get lost in the ocean/ but you know I'd do anything for you, babe"

I feel that the style of this album is akin to that of Dreamland (2020). Although existing in the realm of upbeat indie pop, the album has a diverse track list and doesn't necessarily have a set sound, with a mix of modern sounding indie love songs, to more 60s inspired lullabies. However, all of the tracks have this synthy echo that gives them an almost futuristic feel, and helps with the fluidity of the album as a whole. 

Despite the tracks not necessarily being connected in the way a concept album might be, there are little references to space, astronauts, and the general galaxy throughout all the tracks. Although I'm not entirely sure why, I'd like to think that it's because love as a feeling is so universal that it's bigger than us, it's more than just a human experience.

Top Tracks

I think this one of my new favourite albums, it's so rare that I don't skip a single song. Go and have a listen and see for yourself, thanks for reading :)

Kat xx