Congratulations – ‘Join Hands’ album review: About as wild as pop music can get

Posted On February 13, 2026February 13, 2026

I know I’m guilty of doing this myself to a degree, but when someone responds to the perennially hard-to-answer question of ‘so what music/genres are you into?’ with ‘oh, a bit of everything’, you’ll frequently find yourself doubting whether this is really the case.

The Skinny: You only need to listen to the opening minute of Join Hands, the debut album from Brighton-based foursome Congratulations, to realise that this would be a completely valid response for them to give to this particular inquiry. Much to my frustration, the evergreen music journalist’s cliché of calling a band ‘genre-ambiguous’ or referring to them as polymaths is entirely warranted in their case, but thankfully, the frustration stops at the lack of vocabulary available to describe such a chaotically vibrant album.

Rather than there being a stylistic tug of war between members leading to arguments over whether to dive further into their own respective comfort zones, with various members worshipping at the altars of heavy metal, surf rock and wonky electro-pop respectively, instead they choose to leap between styles as though every genre they touch is on the verge of going out of fashion.

This leads to there being a healthy smattering of the same zany playfulness that their Bella Union label-mates Pom Poko and Personal Trainer inject into their work. It doesn’t really matter that one song loses all sense of its identity halfway through as it hiccups its way from emulating the soulful extravagance of Prince into a sequence of squelchy bleeps that sound as though they were lifted from a forgotten Sega Megadrive game, because this clusterfuck of ideas is executed in a way that simply exudes fun.

There are times when vocalist Leah Stanhope delivers her lines with a raucous rock attitude, yet in amongst this, there are glimmers of cutesiness that the band somehow manage to get away with. Perhaps it’s the marriage of sounds that rarely belong together that makes this dichotomous approach to their artistry work, or perhaps it’s the fact that everything is delivered with so much conviction. Either way, if it works for them, then there’s no point dialling it down so as not to frighten away listeners who want things played safe.

Some people might consider the outlandishness and its refusal to stay still the biggest drawback of the record, but it isn’t. That’s a silly take to have about an album where silliness is engineered to be a prevailing force. Lighten up for Christ’s sake and launch those inhibitions out the window; it’s time for us to Join Hands and revel in the joys of Congratulations’ chimerical pop creations.

The Verdict: Like a child that has been let loose in the sweet shop, there’s always the temptation to gorge on a little bit of everything, and your mum is eventually going to tell you that stuffing your face with jazzies, jelly worms and dolly mixtures all at once might make you a little sick. Maybe mum’s right, but the addictiveness of all that saccharine goodness is going to make you want it even more, and while Join Hands is a dizzying effort, it provides a rush unlike anything else.

Defining track: ‘Dr Doctor’

Release Date: February 13th, 2026 | Producer: Luke Phillips | Label: Bella Union