‘And my eyes they just flood, I’m fine but I’m done’
Summer, here in the UK eludes us, it appears then disappears just as quickly. This is why I prefer The Dangerous Summer, always there, always available and always a ray of sunshine when the weather does you no favours.
So armed with ‘the album nobody wanted’ I waltz into the opener, and it bobs along gleefully as we sing ‘I Feel More Like Myself When I’m Losing It’ we repeat it until we lose our minds in the utter contentment it presents.
With their seventh album the boys are back, all swoonsome and tunesome, a band after my own heart. Singer A J Perdomo has a voice that beckons, it entices and when you cross that threshold into his world, you never want to leave. The band have found their core, their compass and have used it to create this rich and flavourful composition.
In the title track ‘Gravity’ we find ourselves in an inky blackness, one that devours and suppresses. Our attempts to re-engage and reboot ourselves, are discussed here, with a view to repairing, and realigning, and if that is not possible, then forging an alternate route for living out the remainder of our time on this earth.
The ‘I wanna run, I wanna scream I wanna hold you down’ from ‘Pacific Ocean’ is so very Hawthorne Heights but altogether manifesting a dangerous summer. It is evocative and dreamy, such power and presence is just a joy to listen to.
‘There’s beauty in the way you crash your car’ is darkness subsumed, the underlying story of hope, even in the most trying of circumstances, even when you think you can never recover, there will be something, some tiny speck of light, that will lead the way back.
The finale is a sonorous, sumptuous, slow paced number that is purposeful and intimates a notion of regret laced with a restrained optimism, it harbours a yearning for a reconciliation. The buoyant ‘Into The Stratosphere’ sees us weathered and worn, yet we refuse to surrender to our despair, we assign our strength and our conviction into a developmental strategy for a positive outcome. Ultimately it is what we all need, companionship, love and a period of quiet reflection.
We have the perfect summer album, now let’s pray for some sunshine.
Azra Pathan
The Dangerous Summer – Gravity out now.