Plan Your Escape

A far superior follow-up to their pleasant but bland debut From Here to There, Plan Your Escape finds the Belgian pop sextet Girls in Hawaii developing more of a musical personality. Musically, Plan Your Escape leans slightly more to Christophe Léonard's keyboards than the debut had, adding a layer of complexity to winsome indie pop tunes like "Shades of Time." (The addition of a jaw harp to the song's coda is an appealingly quirky touch as well.) Singers Antoine Wielemans and Lionel Vancauwenberghe seem a bit more comfortable about singing in their natural Belgian accents than before as well, which adds another layer of charm to songs like the banjo and accordion-led waltz "Couples on TV." The album's sequencing flows beautifully, moving easily from a peppy rocker like the organ-driven, fuzz-toned "Grasshopper" to the mellow neo-psych gem "Colors," to the whispery indie rock drones of "Birthday Call." But the fundamental change on Plan Your Escape is simply that the songwriting is better, with more memorable tunes, tighter and more adventurous arrangements, and a greater sense of dynamics. Plan Your Escape is enough of a step beyond From Here to There that it's almost tempting to think of it as Girls in Hawaii's proper debut album.