London-based indie-pop quintet Superorganism’s second album World Wide Pop is as chaotic and as confused as its predecessor. 

“I’ve been eating fruit, I’ve been sleeping well when I can and now I feel good” goes the first line of album opener Black Hole Baby, which is ironic for an album that elicits the same physical response as a four-day energy drink binge. The song itself is catchy enough, combining jaunty pop sensibilities with a cool slacker vocal delivery. However the juxtaposition is a little jarring, the results sounding a bit like a Katy Perry song if you’d just told her her nan had died. 

The album’s namesake follows, again it’s catchy but some might argue so is Black Lace’s Agadoo. On & On fairs much better. The song benefits from being a little more stripped back and composed, this time those laid-back vocals suit the instrumentation much more. 

Teenager sees the band joined by CHAI and Pi Ja Ma who pop up a few times throughout the album. Unfortunately, they fail to bring anything new to the table and in the end, the song becomes just as annoying as the adolescents it’s referring to.  


It’s Raining takes its foot off of the pop pedal and leans heavily into hip-hop territory, and it’s all the better for it. Flying isn’t bad either, starting like a children’s TV theme before breaking out into a pretty decent, albeit saccharine-sweet pop ditty. 


Solar System keeps the party in full swing and by this point, I can almost feel my old curmudgeon self reaching for a party hat. Unfortunately the instantly forgettable Into The Sun brings me tumbling right back down to Earth. 


Next three tracks, Put Down Your Phone, crushed.zip and Oh Come On blur into one. Like a candy cane-wielding horror movie villain dressed in a technicolour dream-coat, they’re relentless and just when you think they’re dead, they return for another kill.... or track. 


Thankfully penultimate track Don’t Let The Colony Collapse is far better. A pulsing synth bass drives the song out of the dirge. “I’m content on a Sunday, then it cracks, what a shame.” it’s almost pertinent. Almost. 


Everything Falls Apart concludes things. It’s short but again a little too sweet. Much like the rest of the album, it seems to be working against itself and never really settles into something cohesive. 


World Wide Pop isn’t all bad, the production is slick and the melodies are catchy. It’s a kitchen-sink album, and not in the sense it’s Northern and gritty but in the sense it’s had everything thrown at it and unfortunately not all of it sticks. At times the album lurches from one idea to the next with all the finesse of an articulated lorry. It’s loud, brash, bright and colourful, and admittedly it’s occasionally quite entertaining. Unfortunately like most things that are loud, brash, bright and colourful, too much of it will leave you needing to lie down in a darkened room with a mug of cocoa and a whale-sounds playlist.