Some debuts feel like déjà vu: The Cords doesn’t sound like a 2025 record but like a vinyl resurfaced from a dusty box somewhere between Glasgow and Bristol, when indie pop thrived on two chords and sheer urgency. Eva and Grace Tedeschi come from Greenock, Scotland, and quickly earned recognition and important stages: first a 7’’ that sold out in a flash, then shows with The Vaselines, Camera Obscura and Belle & Sebastian, leading up to signing with Skep Wax and Slumberland. There’s no calculated marketing here, just a wholehearted devotion to a scene thought to be over, treated as if it had never gone away.
The album runs just over half an hour, 13 songs, half of them under two minutes. An ode to brevity, sure, but also a risk: sometimes the spark doesn’t have time to catch fire. Fabulist kicks things off with a crooked smile, jangle-pop recalling the Primitives’ Really Stupid — with the same urgency of barging straight in. October flirts with rockabilly, You veers into noisy shoegaze, Weird Feeling sighs with an anxiety that hangs in the air like a distant storm. And when closer When You Said Goodbye arrives, it feels as if the two have stumbled — almost by accident — on a song too big for their age.
What’s clear is where they come from: Sarah Records, Shop Assistants, Tiger Trap… references as transparent as old posters at a bus stop. The Cords aren’t chasing originality so much as sincerity: they take what they’ve loved and replay it without cynicism, with a direct, spontaneous and disarming touch. The result is fresh, fun, at times moving — but inevitably a little derivative and uneven.
You leave the record with a smile and a few notes of critique: the tracks work, but often end before they truly take shape. It’s an album that promises more than it delivers, and that’s fine: it’s the first step, not the finish line.