Review: girlpuppy draws listeners back into her world with sophomore album, "Sweetness", that's filled with her classic charm laid upon distorted guitar riffs.

Photo: Tonje Thilesen

If you didn't already love the indie pop darling that is Atlanta’s Becca Harvey a.k.a girlpuppy, prepare to amend that as her sophomore album, Sweetness, will draw you into her world. After a newfound creative independence, Becca set out to make a record based solely on her own lyrical and melodic ideas while still working with some of her closest collaborators to capture a sweet balance between her dreamy lyrics and charm mixed with the shoegazey-distorted guitar and melodies you hear throughout the record- and it's the best music she’s ever put out.

After the release of the first single “Champ” earlier this year, it was clear girlpuppy had something special in her midst. One of the handful of well written choruses on the record is in “I Just Do!.” “Think I'm a masochist, I know you can hurt me and I'm letting you cause I like you, I just do,” metaphorizing loving someone so blindly even though it's going to hurt, in a charming fashion. In songs like “Since April” and “Windows” Becca's heartache and agony has a heavy presence in her vocals, illuminated by the 2000s style rock melodies. The back half of the album leans into her dreamy indie-folk sound that's reminiscent of her earlier outings but still maintains that newfound girlpuppy-rock sound, standouts being “For You Two” and “Beaches.”

Even though Becca no longer identifies with a lot of the thoughts and feelings she put into this record, as she said at her album release show in Atlanta, the music and the themes within still resonate with a lot of people. Sweetness may be a collection of melancholy break up songs, but at its core, the record is about the self-discovery of a girl finding her voice and standing by it with no exceptions. “No matter what you do, you will always hear me sing.” (Windows) Filled with that classic girlpuppy whit and head pumping 2000's guitar riffs this second full-length from Harvey is sure to do it for any fan of the genre.