Australian alt-pop rising star Hatchie has returned with her first material since 2019’s debut album Keepsake, and it comes via her new label home Secretly Canadian. On the label switch, she says: “It feels so right to be working with a label as exciting as Secretly as I step into new territory with Hatchie. I’ve been counting down the days until its release for a long time.“
The first example of the “new territory” is a song called “This Enchanted”, which Hatchie introduces by saying:
“‘This Enchanted’ encapsulates everything I wanted to do moving forward from my first album. I started writing it with Jorge and Joe in February 2020 and completed it from afar in lockdown later in the year. We had been talking about making something dancey but shoegaze. It’s one of the more light-hearted, lyrically vague songs of my new recordings, about falling in love. It’s not a perfect relationship, but you’re enthralled by one another and it’s an easy love. It’s one of the most fun songs I’ve written, so it was a no-brainer to pick it as my first solo release in almost two years.“
New attraction is such a rush of exciting and conflicting feelings, and Hatchie captures that both sonically and lyrically in the delightful “This Enchanting”. She skips through the verses with a danceable, Stone Roses-esque lightness that perfectly couples with her playful and coy lyrics; “It shouldn’t have to be so hard / I shouldn’t have to hold your hand / You shouldn’t have to break my heart.” Despite her hesitance, she can’t help but admit in the chorus that “It’s washing over me, this enchanted / Your image is all I see, this enchanted,” which is coupled with a blast of blown-out shoegaze guitar that thwacks like a thudding heart and a shot of adrenaline – a perfect sonic encapsulation of the conflicting rush of emotions that take hold in the heat of a new attraction. Yet again, Hatchie proves herself a purveyor of plush pop rock that economically pack myriad moods into bright, tight and addictive songs.
Watch the video for “This Enchanted” below or find it on streaming platforms.
“This Enchanted” is out via Secretly Canadian. With more to come soon from Hatchie, make sure to follow her on Bandcamp, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
