Album Review: The Prize by Prima Queen

Songwriting course veterans and best friends Louise Macphail and Kristen McFadden have crafted a remarkably accomplished debut Some things are worth taking the time over. Prima Queen, a duo consisting of best friends Louise Macphail and Kristen McFadden, seem to have been around for ages. They met in London at a songwriting course, and when Macphail returned to her native Chicago, the two started writing music together via Zoom.

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Having toured alongside indie favourites such as Wet Leg and Whitney, the transatlantic duo - Bristol-hailing Louise Macphail and Chicago native Kristin McFadden - use an enduring connection, a friendship formed as songwriting students, to anchor themes in flux, the pair's shared encounters threading through songs as varying snapshots. Channelling the likes of Weyes Blood and Naima Bock via the breezy west coast rock of EP Not the Baby, off the back of a slew of singles cutting certified pop with mellow ballads, Prima Queen avoid accusations of standing in a stylistic cul de sac. The Prize stands as a crystallisation of the outfit's decade-long association in this sense, a creative partnership primed by tales of short-term and unfulfilled relationships; the two-piece's debut LP deriving much of its power from such personal histories running in parallel and in tangent, collectively drawing on the peaks and troughs of experiences from the distant and more recent past.

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Having been best friends for the better part of a decade now, it's little surprise that Louise Macphail and Kristin McFadden - aka Prima Queen - would go on to make a debut album that's so tangibly tender and intimate. From the opener sonic swirls of 'Clickbait', a dream-like quality settles over 'The Prize' that feels both evocative and nostalgic, with it blooming into further life via the warm reflection of 'Mexico' and the sparkling chorus of its title track. As with so much of their material so far, the pair's eye for lyrical detail is still on fine form, helping to give the album an almost diaristic stamp (see 'Ugly''s opening line, "Saturday of Glastonbury, I watched you play William's Green", or the woozy 'Flying Ant Day' for some of its more overt moments), while their frank, relatable admissions often tug on the heartstrings ("How could I tell you that I love you / When I know you won't say it back?" goes 'Spaceship').

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