To say I enjoyed listening to this latest release by Seafarers would be an understatement. An album of sublime tunes, storytelling, music, and mixes, Another State is a balanced, bright, and delightful affair of the most passionate indie pop.

A band based in London, Seafarers create thoughtful and picturesque pop that’s loaded with nuance and dripping with a unique character, walking in the vein of fellow English groups London Grammar and Arthur Beatrice, and countless others. The music on this album creates a stunning blend between the pop-centered mixes mentioned earlier and tales of early adulthood in sparsely populated suburbia that provokes a sense of earlier, gentler, and lighter Arcade Fire.

In the words of Seafarers themselves, the songs on Another State are like vignettes of early adulthood, discussing stories of characters as they slip in and out of faith, cities, relationships, and jobs. An album that is warm with its humanness, and generally gentle in its music, the focus is heavily shifted onto the weight of the stories being told, while the music plays sweet and moving, thoughtful teen pop tunes as wholesome accompaniment to the stories, maybe pinning down the lyrical approach of Taylor Swift’s later work as yet another influence.

While influences can be picked here and there throughout the album through musical and melodic cues, there can be no denying that Seafarers are bringing a sound that’s wholly there own on their third album to date. The guitar noodling and rhythmically fragmented, little melodies on songs like ‘Another State’ and ‘Melissa’ paint pictures of vulnerable but dedicated individuals, full of a burning passion for what’s to come while feeling scared and anxious beyond their age, which is a common theme that underlines almost all the songs on the album. The results are relatable and approachable experiences that make the listening experience even more rewarding.

The lyrics on Another State are uniformly brilliant, personal, poignant, and mature. The stories for the different characters are penned with such grace that the personal experiences shared in the words are detailed and exhilarating to witness as they unfold as each song progresses. ‘Everything I’d Do’ is one of the album highlights, telling the story of a pair of high school sweethearts growing bored. With its nods to The National, the deep lyrics have their fare share of eloquent, cryptic, and open-ended half-tales of people, moving through the protagonist’s life, and with its slow burning and explosive instrumental, it is a song that packs stirring punch. Among the album’s best.

‘Anyone Else’ is a song that would sound perfectly at home on The National’s later albums with its perky, soft pecking riffs and curious rhythm. A dynamic and deep-hitting groove, ‘Anyone Else’ is the one song on Another State that probably has the music outshining the lyrics. The interplay between the intensely indie-sounding guitar, channeling Whitney, the unrelenting synth riff, playing a single note, and the snaking bass line, all create a hypnotizing tapestry of colors. Another instrumentally brilliant song follows right afterwards. ‘Tiny Itch’ has an incredibly engaging composition, with an equally engaging groove, and a vocal part that is split between soft spoken verses and an earworm of a chorus melody. A true hook on an incredibly catchy song that is among my own favorites.

“At times it’s overwhelming, but I’m trying to be polite” is the note Seafarers bookend a plain lovely album with, maybe penning an image that could sum up the experiences shared on this album.

Growing into adulthood is not pleasant, it is overwhelming and scary, marred by loneliness and questionable choices. A period of life that’s usually overshadowed by the more base and repetitive difficulties of teen years, which probably can lend themselves to more colorful stories, or the expected duality of actual adulthood, namely achieving domestic bliss, or falling headfirst into ruin. Seafarers are offering gorgeous displays of the normalcy of early adulthood. Stale tales of suburbia and fed up lovers, twisted desires and characters failing time and again to let go of what it feels like to be young and free have seldom sounded so lovely and tangibly stirring. Another State falls third in line for the London six-piece. An album that showcases dazzling musical and lyrical maturity, Another State has left us impatient for the group’s upcoming explorations of later stages of the lives of their unforgettable, mundane heroes.