As architects of formidably nagging hooks, The Itch could scarcely be more aptly named. Pairing effervescent art-pop with wryly self-aware lyrics, Simon Tyrie and Georgia Hardy make sardonic floorfillers that burrow deep under your skin and linger in your consciousness long after the music stops. Consequently, their debut album, It’s The Hope That Kills You, doesn’t just demand attention, it commands it, with productions that feel both playfully nostalgic and utterly contemporary.

At the centre of The Itch’s genius is the dynamic between Simon and Georgia. Having initially met at an open mic night, the Luton-based pair have been friends since high school, playing in various bands together, DJing and running club nights. Most recently, the duo made up two thirds of acclaimed post-punk outfit Regressive Left. Having felt hemmed in by that band’s rigid creative parameters, they started The Itch as a vehicle for unfettered self-expression, looking to dance-punk, electroclash and epic 80s pop productions as a jumping off point for formal experimentation.

Initially just a studio project, a key turning point for The Itch came in 2023 when Regressive Left took part in a David Byrne tribute show at Hackney’s MOTH Club, alongside members of Shame, PVA, Goat Girl and Lazarus Kane. Georgia recalls: “We were all just thrown together having never met before, and had to perform after only two rehearsals. It was like being 16 again, playing covers in your mate’s garage: everyone was nervous and it was chaotic and really fun. After that, we just wanted to recapture that feeling.”

Reinvigorated, they spent six months playing shows as The Itch with a revolving cast of supporting players, before settling on their current live line-up, comprising former-Lazarus Kane members Ben Hambro (electronics), Louis Haynes (bass) and Charlie Meyrick (guitar). The duo have built their impressive live reputation by retaining that same sense of spontaneity, as Simon explains. “We want it to feel dangerous, like anything could happen, so we try not to rehearse too much.” Georgia concurs, “When I see a band live, I don't want to watch a carbon copy of the recording. We approach gigs almost like we’re our own cover band, playing differently every time.”

Their debut single, ‘Ursula’, arrived in April 2024 to widespread acclaim. A statement of intent, its portentous melody takes layers of twitching electronics, fidgety synths and glittering guitar distortion and spins them out into an immersive, seven-minute epic. Thematically, Simon takes inspiration from Ursula K. Le Guin – in particular, her 1974 novel The Dispossessed – using the author’s quest for utopia as a framework through which to examine the thwarted dreams of his own generation.

A year later, The Itch made their debut for Fiction Records with ‘The Influencer/Co-conspirator’, a standalone, double A-side single created from identical audio stems. On the former track, they critique being terminally online over punk-funk rhythms and crude, Peaches-esque synth stabs. The latter is as romantic as it is frenetic, its pounding beats and see-sawing, chopped and spliced synths redolent of Kitsuné’s influential, mid-00s Maison comps. Now their first full-length finds them expanding their horizons even further.

Two years in the making and largely self-produced in their home studio – bar select sessions at Konk in London and PRAH in Margate – It’s The Hope That Kills You is a riot. Anthemic lead single ‘Space In The Cab’ sets the tone, featuring four-to-the-floor beats, warped synths and droll soundbites like, ‘The political climate is taking its toll on my laugh lines.” Pitched somewhere between Metronomy, The Knife and Does It Offend You, Yeah?, on a surface level it’s a tongue-in-cheek ode to hedonism. But as Georgia explains, it was actually inspired by the creative clarity the duo found post-COVID: “It’s us saying just grab the moment, rather than being paralysed by perfectionism. Write the music. Release the song.”

Discussing his arch observational style, Simon describes humour as “a defence mechanism” to deflect from sincerity. You can hear that approach on the deeply mischievous ‘No More Sprechegesang’, which takes aim at the recent glut of earnest post-punk, over a gleefully hyperactive production that’s two parts Devo to one part Bloc Party. Tongue wedged firmly in cheek, Simon’s Phil Oakey-esque vocal intones, “No more Krautrock karaoke at Cafe Oto, which is a shame / No more Speedy Wunderground taking over the local – shout out to those guys.”

They’re mocking themselves as much as they are anyone else, a theme that continues on the waspish dance-punk of ‘Aux Romanticiser’. Beginning with a Subway Takes sample decrying laptop DJs, it continues with Simon declaring, “You don't need to know how to crossfade / Just stick it in your phone and play some Beyoncé.” In something of a handbrake turn, the second half of the song transforms into an emotive alt-dance instrumental worthy of New Order.

It’s this duality that makes The Itch such an exciting proposition. On ‘Drugdealer’, they weave hazy synth washes over epic, gated drums to create a beautifully warped love song with addiction as its central metaphor. Co-produced by Ghost Culture, reference points included Phil Collins, ‘Vienna’ by Ultravox and Laurie Anderson’s ‘O Superman’, but the results are totally unique.

Simon also cites the disjointed, emotion-led approach of director Wong Kar-Wai as particularly influential on the prevailing mood of the album. Because, for all its dry humour and upbeat sonics, there’s no denying that a sense of acute disenchantment clings tightly to the record. You can detect it in the motorik melancholy of the title track, in the punk-funk, cost-of-living critique ‘Can’t Afford This’ and in the serpentine, Talking Heads-esque new wave of ‘Switch It Off’, which examines the dissociative effect of rolling news. As Georgia puts it, with a grin, “Even though we're really influenced by loads of New York dance-punk stuff, we clearly can't shake the British cynicism,”

Taking the temperature of the nation while offering limitless dancefloor catharsis, The Itch are an utterly irresistible proposition. Resistance is futile.

Scott Matthews

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