Xanadu, the new single from Liverpool’s highly talented The Raft is absolute shoegaze gold with a scouse glint that recalls all the pure pop glories of Ian Broudie’s The Lightning Seeds and an alumni of merseyside pop.
The brainchild of Phil Wilson, The Raft has been an incredibly prolific source of shimmering glory – see my previous reviews – and Xanadu is a welcome addition to this canon.
Wilson says:
It’s a bit different for me in that it was written over loops of backwards guitar chords. In fact, it’s just the same four chords going round and round and dropping out in certain places. The inspiration behind the song was Linger by The Cranberries if you can believe that. Listen to the two back to back and I challenge you to find any similarities!
It’s turned out to be one of my favourites because I was just experimenting and having fun. Huge thanks need to go to producer, JPedro for making sense of it all and Claire O’Neill for stamping her mark on it too.
It shimmers and glitters with shards of guitar, and Wilson’s haunting emotive vocals, rounding out with a spoken word outro from collaborator Claire O’Neill that adds to the hypnotic effect. A glorious wall of sound with a yearning pop melody.
‘Xanadu’ is off The Raft’s new album ‘Abloom’ due out in April through Shore Drive Records. Brilliant stuff that deserves a wider audience.
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Thanks for finally writing about >New Track: The Raft – Xanadu plus album news – Backseat Mafia
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