I called Little Quirks' self-titled debut a very strong record, and I meant it. She's Wild blows it out of the water. Eight songs, roughly 26 minutes, not a single skip, and the only complaint I can come up with is that it ends. The New South Wales band, built around sisters Abbey and Mia Toole and their cousin Jaymi Toole, hasn't reinvented itself so much as plugged in. The folk roots and the harmonies are still the foundation, but the guitars are bigger, the rhythm sections hit harder, and the whole record carries itself with a confidence the debut promised.
That confidence shows up in the first few seconds. Moving On opens with an electric urgency, bold guitar and bass working a constant push and pull, and it doubles as a mission statement. The way I hear it, it's about leaving someone who keeps promising to change, getting out while it can still be remembered as love, and the relief on the other side is audible. Through all that new weight, the harmonies that Little Quirks are known for sound even more locked in, and that holds for the entire record. Game Boy keeps the volume up with the punchiest, poppiest song here. It rocks without ever getting aggressive, and is dynamic enough to let a bright, radio-ready chorus through, and a late octave shift keeps the energy climbing till the very end. If I had to bet on a live crowd favorite, this has got to be it.
Then comes the title track, the definitive song of the record. If you want the whole shift in one listen, She's Wild is it. A confident bassline leads into something rich, dark, and fearless, an outright rocker that keeps pulling back and pushing forward until the bridge goes full throttle. Co-written with Jake Gosling, it's a portrait of a woman who answers to nobody. She dances alone, won't reach for anyone who can't adore her, and leaves without looking back, and whoever's fixated on trying to hold her back is going to lose. It plays less like a song about someone else and more like a self-portrait, or a promise. If Moving On is the choice to leave, She's Wild is who you get to be afterward, and the harmonies on these choruses couldn't be stronger. It's wild. They're wild.
After all that energy, Fingertips lets you breathe. It opens on acoustic guitar with Abbey's warm, distinct lead, and mandolin, bass, and male backing vocals fill in around her until the whole thing feels balanced and gentle. It's tender, but there's nothing needy about it. The independence running through the rest of the record is still there underneath, this time in a song about wanting love without needing to be rescued by it, and that's exactly what keeps it from being a cookie-cutter ballad. Little Red Dress then takes the shackles off. Soft, angelic harmonies hand off to urgent hi-hats and a punchy bassline, Abbey's voice gets richer, the transitions become harmony showcases, and when the electric guitars come back, they crash hard. It sounds like moving forward on your own terms.
And then there's Forbidden, my favorite song on the record, easily, with one of the group's strongest ever melodies. It opens on a mysterious, instantly recognizable guitar riff, sinks into low, tom-driven verses, and then the chorus lands like a war call, voices joined as one, Fleetwood Mac style. It isn't built for singing along. It's built on defiance, ready for whatever's coming, and it comes from somewhere deep enough to make you feel powerful just listening. In my review of the debut, I compared Three, another tom-driven slow burn, to "The Chain." Forbidden comes from the same well, only darker and more forceful. Ten out of five stars.
Love That Door is a slow build. Jangly, reverb-soaked guitar notes get played like a riff, and all that early restraint makes the payoff land harder when the power chords finally arrive, played with, well, power. The harmonies are as smooth as ever, an organ bleeds through underneath, and the bridge thumps. But this one belongs to Abbey. She takes the kind of soaring, soulful vocal usually saved for the backing singers behind a stadium band and delivers it out front with full authority. Power, control, and emotion all at once. It's a masterclass.
The record closes on Sacrifice, a callback to their folk and Americana roots, only electric. Twangy guitar lines ride a punchy snare shuffle, fast and urgent, and the bones of it could have sat on the first album. Plugged in, it's something else: tense and dark, the group vocals unified, and a bridge so dynamic it almost feels like the tempo shifts under you. It's haunting, a little spooky, and the best case for what they've become: dark electric folk rock.
The songwriting DNA hasn't changed. The arrangements are what grew up. She's Wild is a record about leaving, about not needing anyone to be whole, and about wanting love anyway, on your own terms, and it sounds every bit as sure of itself as that. These songs are built for the biggest stages, and Little Quirks sound larger than life on them, cosmically grand even. The scary part is that this already sounds like a band at its peak, and it isn't. They're still growing as songwriters and musicians, and as big as She's Wild is, they haven't come close to their ceiling yet. The name may still say little, but nothing else about them is.
