A very warm return from the very likeable, prolific British trio of David Tattersall (guitar and lead vocals), Franic Rozycki (bass), and Jonny Helm (drums) with finely crafted, clever and emotional songs in flavours of 60s garage rock, 70s classic rock and 90s American indie. An enduring band with something of a cult following now over almost three decades, Tattersall’s wistful, tender, emotionally undulating tenor voice and lyrics as ever summon vivid detail of childhood and other memories like the postcards on the album’s cover art and the frontman created this as a tribute to Robert Frank’s art for Exile On Main Street. Sure and Steady is among the immediate standouts, packed with vivid details from eating flapjacks and being eight years old, with “you singing in the church choir, beautiful music by Handel, wobbling in the candlelight”. Lead single, and first track Alice, opens with a brilliantly played resonant guitar solo and is is classic Wave Pictures, jumping between sung and spoken sections with a dash of the delivery of Jonathan Richman, a hint of Thin Lizzy guitar lines and bit of Lou Reed (with East Midlands flavour), and a rich selection of thoughts, images and feelings in just the first four lines alone: “Driving along on a coast road, ginger cat at my feet / Moonlight comes down, radio playing The Woods / I pull off the road and I park by the coast and I stare into the waves / Somebody said that there'd be ice cream at the end of the day … Hey Alice, when's it gonna happen?”
The House Painted Blue mixes visual memory and emotions of longing and regret in a dream-like painting: “I'm spinning in my mind on nothing in the world / A letter in my hand, a man I used to know / His eyeglasses, his cigarettes, his typewriter / I looked away passed the house painted blue / I looked away from you / Cars on the road pass by like ghosts / They don't look like they know where they're going to.” The guitar sound slips between echoes of The Bhundu Boys and the Allman Brothers. This is typical of a wonderfully strong album release – simmering memories and influences, poetic, profound, lightly humorous, melancholic, tender and warm – from the slower, stripped back close harmon Sparklers, the 70s-rocking Gained Lost, the dark, fuzzy rock of You’re My Patient Now, written like a mixture of Raymond Chandler and Link Wray, the twangy 60s garage momentum of The Past Comes Back to Haunt Me and the soft, mandolin-flecked closer Worry Anymore. Classy, creatively crafted and naturally flowing, filled with pathos and nuanced emotions, a prolific band still with so much to offer, Tattersall still strangely under the radar as one of the outstanding guitarists and songwriters of the past 25 years. Out on Bella Union.
The Wave Pictures: David Tattersall, Franic Rozycki and Jonny Helm
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