Now more confident and comfortable in the language of songwriting, the new album takes the foundations Hibberd started laying on ‘Garageband Superstar’ and builds them up several accomplished storeys. The tongue-in-cheek humour that won her praise is still present, but it’s joined by new layers of nuance and candidness – think songs that can make you laugh, cry and feel less alone, all within under four minutes. Sonically, too, she’s entering new ground, bringing together forever influences like Avril Lavigne, Weezer and Green Day with the likes of Olivia Rodrigo, Liz Phair and Taylor Swift.
After documenting her life to date on “Garageband Superstar”, more than anything “Girlfriend Material” captures who Hibberd is in this moment – changed from the artist we met on album one and likely different from the artist we’ll meet in the future. It is, she says, a record that captures everything she is right now. “I’m figuring out who the hell I am,” she smiles. “I’m lighting candles and trying to manifest, I’m reading books, and I’m trying to run – all of these things will fade off in the next two months, and I’ll never do them again, but it’s part of that process.” ‘Girlfriend Material’ courses with that exploratory, sometimes confused, questioning feeling.
The widescreen, glittering duet ‘Pretty Good For A Bad Day’ was co-written with and features Alex Gaskarth, frontman of All Time Low, one of her biggest influences. The bravest moment of the album comes in ‘I Suck At Grieving’, a song that manages to both jangle and pummel as it finds Hibberd lamenting herself for “avoiding” mourning her dad and projecting her feelings onto other incidents and annoyances instead.
The Fat Angel Sings 