Album of the Week: Please - Plush

Please. It's a word that when spoken can have double meanings - a polite way of asking or a forceful pleading. On the EP from Plush it straddles both - the five track release is a dazzling portrait of relationships, love and sexuality. With its gauzy sheen of surf-rock meets shoegaze, Please is a romantic and seemingly limitless dreamland.

Power isn't something women are often given, in anything, and that can prove especially true when it comes to relationships and speaking about our sexuality. But in Please, the members of this San-Francisco four-piece reclaim what's theirs. In our early glimpses of the EP we were left stunned with the display of ferocity of "Sheer Power," and the meaning behind it made it all the more significant. That reclamation continues throughout the recording, most notably on closer "Fixes." It's here that harmonies etched in fuzz defiantly declare "I don't wanna hold your head up/let you in/or care for your bed sores." And with such a beautiful swirled backing of guitars and drums, it makes the landing of the statements thunderous and powerful - the truth is, we're all choosing to stay,

Please is the innermost thoughts our hearts have all held, but we often never revealed. The unsettled anxiety that comes with musings on a lover who let you down ("Dreams of You"), pleading to not be left alone ("Please Don't Let Me Go") and the fear that you were never really loved at all ("Go2Bed"). These moments can be scary and dark, but Plush turns them into empowering confessions. Their seemingly unweighted and unhurried instrumentals are given their space to speak, and in doing so may inspire us all to reclaim what we've abandoned.