Ultimately, the beauty of Sacred Hearts Club is that it sounds like a Foster the People album without unnecessarily rehashing the sound that made them famous.
In the end, Sacred Hearts Club isn’t so bold a departure as others might think. Foster’s probably been dying to write a record like this for years – and, y’know, so long as he continues to write from ever-so-slightly selfless angles, he’s welcome to push his crew wherever he pleases.
In reality, Sacred Hearts Club splits the difference between the bookending acts on that Grammys tribute: Maroon 5 and the Beach Boys.
Overall, Sacred Hearts Club also signals a return to Foster The People’s more electronic origins, but not in the inventive way that was used on Torches. Rather, it comes off as hackneyed copy, full of the predictable EDM/trap beats that every other chart-topper has shoved in somewhere.
Sacred Hearts Club contains some of the worst music we’ve heard all year.
Sacred Hearts Club is record of frustration on the listener’s part – we know they’re capable, but Foster the People have again failed to recapture the brand of youthfulness established in their hype-fuelled industry breakthrough. Equally, they fail to mature into an alternative sound with adequate craft to entice attention.