We here at Backseat Mafia hyperventilate every time there is a new release from UK-born US resident Coyle Girelli with unseemingly scraps over who gets to review his songs. The good news is Girelli’s new album ‘Museum Day’ is due out tomorrow and we get to give you an early listen before it is released into the wilderness.
Coasting along on a bright dappled instrumental sound, Girelli’s crooner vocals are cool and expressive with the kind of sonorous timbre that recalls Matt Berninger from The National, but with added verve and expression. Girelli’s continued strength is his inherent pop sensibilities that are cloaked in a sense of deep yearning and romanticism.
Opening track ‘Jane Tells A Lie’ canters along with a high stepping trot and scaling melodies, Girelli’s voice at sometime sounding like Morrissey with all the attendant drama and theatricality accompanied by the complex guitar arpeggios of Johnny Marr. It’s a glorious anthem that positively shimmers.
Title track ‘Museum Day’ is an incandescent ray of filtered joy, tempered with a guilding of melancholy, eloquently expressing desire and love.
The lyrics essentially express the unadulterated heady thrill of love, where even the most mundane activity is drenched in joy:
I want to go out
anywhere with you
It don’t matter where we go tonight
It don’t matter where we go tonight
I want to go out
anywhere with you
It don’t matter where we go tonight
It don’t matter where we go tonight
Girelli says of the track:
Museum Day is a more upbeat indie vibe than I’ve done for a while. It sounds like a hot summer’s night on the town in New York City, without the hangover in the morning. It’s about a moment. A memory. A happy one. A perfect one. Something you crave and miss and want.
The high stepping trot is given buoyancy by the Johnny Marr-esque guitar riffs that seemingly skip like a sugar-loaded child and anthemic melodies that would make Harry Styles wilt with envy.
‘Swim’ has crystalline guitars that warble and sparkle as if hit by sunbeams – a statuesque and majestic opening with Girelli’s yearning vocals breaking hearts. ‘So Predictable’ is cinematic and bold, a scything guitar arching contrails in the sky with a stop start rhythms and aching vocals. Girelli says of the track:
In a lot of ways this song is a kind of ode to Los Angeles. It’s a complicated town, filled with complicated people and I have a complicated relationship with it. I turned the grungy fuzz pedals on and the amplifiers up for it!
‘Between Us’ is another anthemic gem with a Springsteen-esque blush – expressive vocals over a driving insistent pattern. Girelli says of the track:
‘Between Us’ is a love story in New York City. A love lost and found again. Distance and return. A love that persists. Yet fighting against it. The fear and curiosity. What awaits? Heartbreak or True Love?
‘Real Love’ takes a breath – arpeggiated guitars support Girelli’s yearning vocals that have a Roy Orbison range – creating a delicacy and a veracity that is intimate and close.
‘Nobody’ explores the theme of loneliness in a big city and a feel of melancholy bleeds through every note over dappling guitars, whereas ‘The Girl’ has a shuffle and beat that picks up the pace with its warbled guitars, anthemic chorus and romantic overtures – why don’t you take me home, what the hell are you waiting for?.
‘I Tried to Love You’ is a dirty bluesy track with Girelli’s vocals whiskey soaked and aching under the shuffling percussion, laced with a bacchanalian feeling of overindulgence and regret. It has a restrained slow burning feel that is about to explode but keeps the reigns tightly held.
The album ends with ‘New York Rain’ – a sort of quiet, reflective ode to his city of residence.
‘Museum Day’ is quite simply a glorious album – filled with yearning emotions and the most shimmering instrumentation that is celestial and majestic. Every song has a close intimate personal feeling – reflecting, perhaps, a deep expression of Girelli’s emotions – a veritable Englishman in New York – observant, poetic, a lyricism that expresses a love for a city, a girl,a time and a place. Definitely one of the albums of the year for me.
‘Museum Day’ is out tomorrow Friday, 27 October 2023 but you can have an exclusive early listen below and pre-save it here.
You can also pre-order through the link below in a variety of formats:
Feature Photograph: Shervin Lainez
With thanks to Craig Young.
