The band opened for Morrissey in 2004 and comparisons with their singer Murray Lightburn has been a blessing and a curse. While it surely helped them get an audience, Lightburn comes from a jazz background (his dad was a jazz musician) and there is a more cinematic element in his music à la Leonard Cohen, Tindersticks and Pulp.
While I am not sure they ever eclipsed that breakout album. the band has (in my mind) largely avoided any missteps in their prolific career. In 2020, the band released their eighth album Lover’s Rock.
One will occasionally find an album that no one else enjoys, and for me that might be Lovers Rock. Reviews were mostly good though some like the NME blasted it. Many a reviewer was quick to point out that Lightburn and bandmate Natalia Yanchak had been married for a couple of decades by now, but it sounded like a breakup record.
The band rightfully choosing to self produce had stripped their sound a bit (though not fully - for example Jake Clemons of the E Street Band is here) and it felt in many ways like a throwback to No Cities Left.
I find it a late era masterpiece the likes few bands can claim.
2025s Life is Beautiful! Life is Beautiful! Life is Beautiful! surely evokes a positive feeling follow up to Lovers Rock from the album title to the life affirming song “Life is Beautiful” near the end of the album.
While I prefer its predecessor, there are plenty of great moments. “Babe, We will Find A Way” is as good of a song as they have ever done.
"This is How We Make Our Dream Come True" feels like a cousin to the Sparks song “Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth”
Tomorrow and Tomorrow is direct from Leonard Cohen’s “Memories”, with soulful uplifting singing from Lightburn. “Tears of a Nation” is a hard rocker that balances U2- style arena anthems and hard Goth guitar riffs. “Dead Contacts” is probably actually the closest the band has come to making a Morrissey sounding song in awhile.
“Life is Beautiful” is almost too sunshine positive to be enjoyable but as switches to closer “Don’t Go” it feels an essential piece.
Though the band has not said it (and may not have intended it), this feels like a bookend to their last album. If Lovers Rock was the dissolution of a relationship and all the negativity that comes with it, this album is almost solely focused on the positive. The album is again bolstered by smart production, keen songwriting and a tendency towards short punchy songs.
I am still shocked by the number of reviewers (not just the NME) who hated the last album. That album is without a question, one of my favorites in the last ten years. To me, this album falls short of that, but I definitely don’t feel any disappointment.
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