Long standing Welsh psych-pop band KEYS have released a new single, This Side Of Luv, as part of a collection of songs the band recorded in lockdown by the most basic of means, complete with hiss. As vocalist / guitarist / songwriter Matthew Evans explains “We recorded these tracks on Cassette four track machines during lockdown. Let’s not pretend we had access to an expensive studio, we didn’t. It was a time to connect with bedroom songwriting again. These are not band arrangements worked out in a rehearsal room – these were written and recorded simultaneously. Not demos but songs that took shape during the “recording process.”
Of the new song ‘This Side of Luv’, Matthew goes on “This was our attempt at joyous early 70’s Midlands pop. 3-day weeks, winters of discontent, a Tory government…yet out of that bleakness came some heroic, ecstatic British pop music.”
The Hiss is there, but it never gets in the way of the exuberant 70s melancholy (yes, that is possible) that aims at Wizzard and ELO, and largely gets there via a dose of Belle and Sebastian at their most flamboyant. It’s singalong, torch song territory, and if you don’t reach for some kind of neckwear and roll your jeans up with a big smile on your face, there’s something seriously wrong with you.
Dive in, here
This side of love is out July 17th via Libertino Records
