Dynamic, passionate, heart-stirring indie rock in this project fronted by Chilli Jesson (formerly bassist of Palma Violets) with songs spurred by the trauma of losing his father 20 years ago, retelling a defiant and difficult aftermath, with sound boosted by producer Carlos O’Connell of Fontaines D.C. Jesson has more recently played with the acclaimed Dublin band as a touring musician, which perhaps has boosted his creative energy. Jesson was just 14 when he lost his father to drug addiction, so there’s a lot to process here, and while there’s a clear painful autobiographical element with the album described as narrative-driven, tracing the immediate years after his loss, lyrics are less specific, more abstract, snapshots of memories, observations and outcries of feelings. It’s an album packed with strong melodies and indie rock bangers from opener It’s Only Just Begun, the vivid Volatile Child (“I'm on the floor of the YMCA / Where the bunk beds nauseate / Well, I just can't now calm down”), which has something of Arcade Fire about it; the fabulous fuzz guitar and swirl of anarchic experience in Goosebumps “I can't deal with the state of this / I can't deal with the state we're in”); memories of parental arguments on Running Out of Gas with the pacy acoustic guitar higher-voiced delivery; the woozy psychedelia of Junkyard Radiator or the big singalong That’s Life (“Dark thoughts tell me everything I've known is a lie / Conspiracies grip the nation's screens, override / I don't know who to believe this moment in time”); the fierce, explosive Kasabian-ish Don’t Blame The Son For The Sins Of The Father (“Think I'm in remission / End up banished to the kitchen / Four star cooking almost Michelin / But she won't take a bite”); to passionate, grief-stricken closer Need You So Bad. Visceral, powerful, personal, but also big-chorus tuneful. Out on Fiction Records / Universal.
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