Kait Eldridge has hit power-pop paydirt with Big Eyes before. As early as the second song on the band’s debut - Pretend To Care from 2011’s ‘Hard Life’ - she had nailed her aim of pairing sick guitar riffs with pop melodies between the eyes. To date, though, that balance has been tough to sustain across the course of a record. ‘Stake My Claim’ is Big Eyes ironing out the creases.
Here Eldridge utilises a second guitarist, Paul Ridenour, and mines a rich vein of stripped-back, ‘70s-indebted riffs, all of which are delivered with getting in, doing their thing and getting the hell out enshrined as priority number one. That sense of economy makes room for the record’s many vocal hooks to manoeuvre. Where once the overlaps might have clouded the final image, here each element is defined and executed with due consideration.
Eldridge and Ridenour spar on the title track before crashing into a wall of power chords, for example, but the song’s snappy ending leads immediately into the giddy melodies of Behind Your Eyes. ‘Stake My Claim’ has its rock moments, its pop moments and moments where those streams cross, like the sublime Leave This Town, but never serves one to the detriment of the other.
Throughout, meanhwhile, Eldridge mulls over changes in scenery, time ticking away and the ever-present spectre of escaping to something new.
From revelling in a yell of “anticipation”, on the aforementioned Leave This Town, to wiping slates clean on Count The Pegs, she consistently wrings anthemic mileage from her frustrations. With each observation carried along by a propulsive rhythm section - bassist Malcolm Donaldson and drummer Griffin Harrison - the roadblocks that appear feel eminently conquerable.
‘Stake My Claim’ is littered with some of the best songs of Eldridge’s career to date, but its great success lies in its collective punch. Signing off in under 25 minutes, it’s an exercise in straight ahead, no filler songwriting that doesn’t mistake brevity for a lack of ideas.
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