ALBUM REVIEW: Balancing Act - Who’ve You Come As Part 2

Balancing Act are back with ‘Who’ve You Come As Part 2’, which picks up straight where its predecessor, the group's debut album left off last October and it has undoubtedly been worth the wait.

As per their namesake, they have proven once again their musical versatility and ability to combine influences from several different genres seamlessly. This iteration showcases a more confident, seductive version of the group, as all they needed to do was amplify everything that made their first album a success. This escalating momentum becomes immediately apparent as soon as the bold guitar riff kicks in on opening track ‘Sunshine’.

However along with this assurance comes sincerity, which occasionally leads to more mellow offerings, as frontman Kai Roberts is unwilling to shy away from writing honestly about his experiences hence his declaration, “I wear my heart on my sleeve”.The group claim ‘Who’ve You Come As Part 2’ was written “built on nights of cheap Cab Sav”, which may be responsible for these emotional juxtapositions, however it has proven to be the formula for yet another brilliant album.

‘Wrapped Around Embroidery’, is perhaps the biggest deviation thematically. It begins with a country-inspired acoustic guitar lick, dialling back the tempo and providing a necessary interlude, essential for an album that has been operating with uninterrupted energy thus far. It contains pining lyricisms which sound like they could have been written by Alex Turner around the time he began first adoring leather jackets and greasy slicked back hair during Arctic Monkeys Suck It and And See era.

Anthemic closing track, ‘There's A Few Of Us Still Here’ stands out, and not just due to its positioning on the album. It begins with an isolated piano reminiscent of the introduction on LCD Soundsystem's ‘All My Friends' and it manages to evoke a similar sense of overwhelming melancholy, capturing perfectly the introspective woes that only worsen with age, “Don’t act like a child again, you’re closer to forty my friend”.

What Balancing Act have managed to accomplish ‘Who’ve You Come As Part 2’ is the unequivocally the perfect sequel which will allow them to uphold their reputation as they continue to establish themselves as a group eyes and ears should be kept on.