The Breakdown
We are a bit late to this one, but then again it did take Sheffield band The Suncharms 32 years to follow up their album released in 1992, so that makes us feel a little better. And the return album, released late last year, is well worth visiting: it is a delightful collection of jangling, ambulant tracks delivered in that C86/Sarah Records style that made this band so special in the first place.
Buoyed by the success of an American retrospective compilation compiling all their 90s recordings (released in 2016 on Cloudberry Records), the band reconvened with the original lineup and began to write new songs. Slumberland Records released their comeback single ‘Red Dust’ / ‘Film Soundtrack’ in 2018 and the band then wrote the brand new songs which make up ‘Things Lost ‘.
There are genetic links to the band’s shoegaze origins and a kind of louche dream pop vibe that threads its way through the album. Strings and synths add an illustrious layer to the mix.
Opening track ‘3:45’ is named after, well, the length of the track. It’s a jingle jangle song with distant reflective vocals, and is followed by the pop vibes of ‘Satanic Rites’ that reminds me a little of the legendary Galaxie 500 with its lilting melodies and wall of warm fuzzy guitars. There is a continued thread of yearning and melancholy that appears in the poignant title track ‘Things Lost’ with its ambulant rolling bass and sparkling guitars, the vocals distant and remote in the mix. I am reminded of the Flying Nun/Dunedin sound of bands like The Chills and The Bats with the gentle melodic flow.
‘Whitby’ coasts on a Hammond organ bedrock that adds a liquidity to the sound underneath the cascading guitars that drop like waterfalls with delicate harmonies whereas ‘Daylight is Here’ has a pounding drum sound reminiscent of The Jesus and Mary Chain before the dark low vocals enter with a laconic tone.
‘Red Wine Kisses’, ‘Dark Skies’ and ‘Demonic Eyes’ lets a little filtered sunshine in with their bright guitar riffs and pulsing bass. ‘Torrential Rain’ flows with a faint tremolo in the shimmering guitars that fall like the rain in the title with an achingly beautiful melody. The album ends with ‘Last Tram’ ringing with faint bells in the distance, fuzzy guitars and a restless bass, imbued with a deep yearning, augmented by the spoken word interlude recounting the passing of time.
This is a shimmering collection of songs that prove my much used phrase creativity does not have a use by date. ‘Things Lost’ harks back to the shoegaze era with a low-fi simplicity and a mix of fuzzy and crystalline guitars, and yet expands the canvas with more colours and textures into the modern era. At the heart of the songs lies a dedication to melody and the creation of a delicate ethereal world filled with a certain romanticism and poignancy.
‘Things Lost’ is out now through Sunday Records and available to download and stream through all the usual sites and through the link above.
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