The Working Men’s Club frontman from Todmorden in West Yorkshire makes his debut solo LP, a melancholy yet beautiful collection of acoustic and gently reflective pastoral, psychedelic songs, with echoes of Elliott Smith, Syd Barrett and Nick Drake. The album is described as the “sound of a door opening onto a pasture, fog rolling over grass as the sun rises in the distance; it is the sound of renewal, and a sense of optimism. These are glistering melodic songs, an antidote to the chaos and abrasive atmosphere of touring, and a beautiful side-step.” A haven from the seven years of synth pop and post-punk touring with Working Men’s Club, its a soothingly downbeat, drowsily ethereal release, with stripped back arrangement mainly on acoustic guitar and minimal accompaniment, with Robert Kirby adding some lush string arrangements. “Come round another time / In another life / And maybe I won’t feel death’s in my stride” he sings on the gorgeous Summer Song. “Hear the tremble in our voice / Hear the stutter in your choice of word / like to reminisce about the bridges and the bliss we've shared,” he delivers, on the tender I Don’t Wanna. Another standout is The Long Roads is another stripped-down acoustic number - “Taking time to realise, the way we see ourselves”. The dreamy, floaty Lisboa intertwines with piano and plays along lovely chord progressions with A Million Flowers is a wistful closer “remembering times of love, trying to forget all kinds of pain”. Like low-hanging apple, a delicious, late-summer, beautifully bucolic diversion. Out on Domino Records.
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