Sunflower Bean
The Wardrobe, Leeds/Touring

“LET’S make some loud music!” hollers Julia Cumming, the first of many such exhortations from Sunflower Bean’s bassist and lead vocalist, whose volume-control button seems to have malfunctioned.

This might be a problem if the New York trio, joined by keyboard player Danny Ayala, failed to deliver on the statement of intent. Yet from opening track Burn It — all Joan Jett attitude and big rock riffs — it’s clear that they’ve outgrown their formative roots in shoe-gaze and indie psychedelia.

The swaggering beast into which they’ve transformed reflects their passage into adulthood — their 2016 debut was released when they were still in their late teens — but also how to work the stage. Reviews of second album Twentytwo in Blue have regularly cited Rumours-era Fleetwood Mac but, with the exception of that yearning number, the reference point here is Peter Green’s harder 1970s rock iteration of the band.

A case in point is Human For, on which guitarist Nick Kivlen’s garage rock licks and instrumental break matches the venom in Cumming’s delivery when she spits out: “I don't need your protection.” It’s a sound within which their older material is also framed, with closing number I Was Home creating pounding drama with a false ending and an extended outro that verges on prog.

There are vestigial traces of their earlier self, such as the jangly guitars on the nostalgic I Was A Fool, but for the most part this is a convincing and exhilarating rebirth.