Shoegaze offers the perfect place to bury bad feelings; there is a storied legacy of groups like Slowdive and Mazzy Star sinking Tory conservatism and post-breakup remorse into hazy swirls of distortion. Harriette Pilbeam uses Hatchie as an outlet for more quotidian concerns — friendships, romances, nostalgia. On her EP Sugar & Spice, Pilbeam offered glassy guitars, long sighs, and some bright choruses, but there was nothing darker beneath the surface to reward your close, ongoing attention. She promised a broader palette for her debut, but Keepsake feels hemmed in by the same lack of depth. Pillbeam's platonic ideal of dream pop goes down a bit too easy, like another rewatch of a John Hughes film.

“Not That Kind” opens Keepsake with the same buzzing synthesizers and metallic guitars that made Sugar & Spice such a potent nostalgia trip. By the time the same patterns repeat on “Her Own Heart,” and again, slower, on “Kiss the Stars,” Keepsake begins to drag. Even “Stay With Me,” pitched as an electro-pop escape from the guitar-heavy record, sounds more like a Revlon commercial than anything memorable enough to spin at the party featured in its music video. In a vacuum, each of these tracks is inoffensive but forgettable. Taken together, they are much less than the sum of their parts.

For an artist so laser-focused on pop production, Pilbeam’s songwriting is unapologetically sophomoric. Romance is either predestined in stars and magic (“Just as long as you keep me under your spell just a little longer,” she sings on “When I Get Out”) or painfully banal (“Just for a while, let’s reconcile,” she suggests on “Secret”). And as on her breakout single “Try,” the smallest efforts seem to mean the most: “Give it a try,” she repeats on the chorus of “Unwanted Guest.” At the very least, the platitudes provide a canvas of long vowels and deep sighs tailor-made for Pilbeam’s breathy vocals.

Album closer “Keep” sticks out as the most successful riff on a preset formula. After a surprisingly upbeat intro propelled forward by rubbery synths, it builds in layers; by the time the vocals come in, mixed low, the song resembles a fresh take on the early Flying Nun catalog. Keepsake is an album filled with small, inspired moments like this, but they don’t add up to much. Sugary but hollow, Keepsake melts like cotton candy, dissolving on impact.

Buy: Rough Trade / Vinyl Me, Please

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