Punchy, hooky, catchy indie-power-pop and rock by the Northern Ireland veteran trio, following 2023’s Race The Night, returning for their ninth album with Blur’s Graham Coxon joining them on a couple of tracks in an album rich in rock guitar licks and big choruses. Despite the space travel theme of the title, it’s hardly a boldly going to where no band has gone before, but certainly ticks the boxes for fans of their accessible singalong rock and big guitar sound. Noow going more more than three decades (they formed in 1992), it’s 29 years since their breakthrough debut LP 1977. This one opens with a short, if grandiose nod to Richard Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra, before the extremely Smiths-like Which One Do You Want. Picks of the bunch are those involving Coxon - Fun People and the title track, with retro synths, great melodies, rich guitar layering and fabulous riffs, as well as the big chorus sound of Give Me Back My World. Canadian prog legends Rush also seem to be an influence here, not only on the opener but on the epic, spatial overall, big drum sound, especially an the beginning of Deadly Love, which is full of voluminous heavy rock soloing. There’s a variety of familiar styles. My Favourite Ghost goes the wistful, acoustic and orchestral route, followed by version of calypso standard Jump In The Line, a song made famous by Harry Belafonte. “Take me up to the stars, we will learn who we are,” Tim Wheeler sings on the title track. But this release is hardly rocket science, but fun, catchy, familiar territory returning to Earth. Out on Fierce Panda Records.
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