As a band, Flat Party know how to go big. On 'C4mgrrl', they go bigger and sleazier than ever.
Listening back through their discography, there are plenty of these soaring moments. The chorus hit in 'I'm Bored, Give Me Love'. The breakdown in 'Paranoia/Delicate Dawn', where singer Jack Lawther seems to transform for a moment into Axl Rose. Or how about the finale of 'Circle', where the whole band drop any inkling of indie to go all in on heavy, theatrical late 1970s style hair metal?
There are plenty of moments where they not only go big but break out of the box to do so, smashing through walls of genre and expectation. It's always inspiring to see that the London unit clearly won't let any degree of categorisation stop them from chasing where inspiration sends them.
With 'C4mgrrl', it sends them somewhere deliciously slutty, chasing the inspiration of a song about a man with a porn addiction, and giving it the '80s darkly seductive synth treatment before breaking into something big at the intersection between britpop guitar anthems, addictive indie-pop and sleazy electro when Djank's Taylor Pollock drops in for the bridge.
It's clear that the band started with the story and followed from there. "'C4mGrrl' is a song about porn addiction told from the perspective of a man cheating on his partner through an online relationship with a cam girl," Lawther said, before making sure to quickly add, "It's obviously a fabricated story."
But when presented with 'Mother's Boy' as a b-side, and its opening lyric of "I will only ever choose to see women who do the work for me, the story of the double drop becomes bigger and more prescient. It felt so prescient in fact that Lawther at first intended it to be a way more sizable project."
"After I had written this and the accompanying track 'Mother's Boy', I thought I was going to write loads more songs for a concept album about terrible men," he said, but in the end settled on two songs from two sides of the same coin - the sexed up sleaze, and the true problem under it, exploring how misogyny drips into relationships.
'C4mgrrl' wins if the two tracks had to be pitted against each other. It's the sort of track that demands attention. No matter what volume you're playing it at, it feels loud and big and boisterous. It's another moment that screams of Flat Party's power, both as a band with a sonic punch, but also their boldness when it comes to switching things up.
But when presented alongside 'Mother's Boy', it becomes a masterstroke of concept that gets you dancing, then catches you out, asking you to think a moment too.