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**Foster The People - Sacred Hearts Club**
★★★★☆

Three albums deep into their career, Foster The People have finally stopped running from the shadow of "Pumped Up Kicks." Mark Foster's band returns with Sacred Hearts Club, their most cohesive and emotionally mature statement yet, trading the manic energy of their breakthrough hit for something altogether more introspective and sonically adventurous.

The journey to this third full-length has been anything but smooth sailing. Following 2014's polarizing Supermodel, which saw the band wrestling with the uncomfortable legacy of having written an inadvertent school shooting anthem, Foster The People found themselves at a crossroads. The departure of founding bassist Cubbie Fink in 2015 could have spelled disaster, but instead it seems to have liberated Foster and drummer Mark Pontius to explore new sonic territories with a freedom that was perhaps impossible when weighed down by expectations of recreating their early success.

Sacred Hearts Club finds Foster The People embracing a broader palette of influences, weaving together threads of psychedelic pop, electronic experimentation, and classic rock craftsmanship. The album's production, handled by Foster himself alongside a rotating cast of collaborators, feels both expansive and intimate – a trick that few indie-pop acts manage to pull off convincingly. There's a warmth here that was often missing from their earlier work, as if the band has finally learned to trust their instincts rather than second-guessing every creative decision.

The album announces its intentions immediately with "Pay the Man," a swaggering opener that marries a hypnotic bassline to Foster's most confident vocal performance to date. It's a song about artistic integrity and the compromises that come with commercial success, themes that run throughout the record like a nervous system. The track builds to a euphoric chorus that recalls the best moments from Tame Impala's Currents, but with a distinctly American optimism that sets it apart from Kevin Parker's more introspective musings.

"Sit Next to Me" emerges as the album's most immediate pleasure, a piece of perfectly crafted indie-pop that manages to sound both timeless and thoroughly contemporary. Foster's falsetto floats over a bed of shimmering guitars and subtle electronic textures, creating something that feels like a lost classic from a parallel universe where The Beach Boys discovered synthesizers in 1975. It's the kind of song that burrows into your consciousness and refuses to leave, which explains its eventual chart success and status as the band's biggest hit since their debut era.

Elsewhere, "Loyal Like Sid & Nancy" showcases the band's willingness to embrace darker themes without sacrificing their essential pop sensibilities. The song's exploration of toxic relationships is wrapped in such gorgeous melodies that the poison goes down like honey, a testament to Foster's growing sophistication as a songwriter. "Doing It for the Money" continues this thematic thread, offering a critique of modern capitalism that never feels preachy thanks to its irresistible groove and Foster's self-deprecating humor.

The album's emotional centerpiece arrives with "III," a sprawling seven-minute odyssey that finds Foster grappling with questions of identity and purpose over a backdrop of swirling synthesizers and Krautrock-influenced rhythms. It's the band's most ambitious composition to date, and their willingness to let it breathe and evolve organically suggests a newfound maturity that extends beyond mere songcraft into genuine artistic vision.

Sacred Hearts Club succeeds because it sounds like a band that has finally stopped trying to be anything other than themselves. The desperate genre-hopping of Supermodel has been replaced by a confident synthesis of influences that feels natural rather than calculated. Foster's lyrics have gained depth and nuance, moving beyond the surface-level observations of their early work to engage with complex emotional and social themes.

Six years on from its release, Sacred Hearts Club has quietly established itself as Foster The People's creative peak, a record that found the band successfully transitioning from one-hit wonders to genuine album artists. While it may have lacked the immediate cultural impact of Torches, its influence can be heard in a generation of indie-pop acts who learned that electronic music and organic songwriting need not be mutually exclusive.

In an era of playlist culture and shortened attention spans, Sacred Hearts Club stands as a testament to the enduring power of the album as an artistic statement. It's a record that rewards repeated listening, revealing new layers of meaning and musical detail with each encounter. Foster The People may never escape the gravitational pull of their early success entirely, but Sacred Hearts Club proves they're capable of