There’s an honesty in this here-there album that cradles a deep, burning emotion that tempers the good and evil in modern-day life. The ‘Expected To Fly’ opener, ‘Painted It Gold’ has a wonderfully stripped-back Brit Pop resonance that bubbles with understated promise before a late-night Uber eats delivery of heartbreak and rain-covered love letters is moped up and dried on whiskey-fueled home fires. The delicate desperation of ‘Black Cloud’ is lightly basted in a Country ‘N’ Stones blend of spices while the all-day under-duvet comfort on a slowly rising ‘Hide’ brushes many genres, but it just clicks. A blue-collar kicked-back punch arrives as a rippling ‘Make Up Your Mind’; nevertheless, the show stealer is the eclectic footie dreamer of ‘Boys Yard’. The realism of four scores and ten wafts under the door of internal pressure as ‘I’m NOT Superman’ and the final cut of ‘I Am Your Sound’ complete a richly enjoyable release that teases, tickles and quietly kicks the chair from under your feet.
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