Greetings From Ashton Park, West Kirby appeared in I Don't Hear A Single's Best Of 2020 and rightly so. It is an album that sounds as though it comes from the West Coast Of America, when West Coast Music Club actually come from my West Coast, the Wirral, over the water from Liverpool.
The Brit Pop Rock sensibilities were around on that album and are even more so on Faded Scrapbook. Having said that, there are still nods to across the Atlantic Ocean, If You Only Knew isn't a million miles away from Neil Young and Ouija Doll is very San Francisco hippy Psych.
Hotel California (no not that one) is big Brit Pop, more than a little like Embrace with a decent song. The vocal is very Danny McNamara, but the song doesn't rely on endlessly repeated choruses. The View From Here could be described as Folk, more likely Psych Folk. It broods wonderfully.
The real take from the album is how much the album Jangles, but does so in different ways. Now Or Never is more melancholic yet. Here It Comes Again heads towards Dream Pop and Faded Scrapbook is a Psych Pop Jangle.
The stand out is the opener, Fanclub Favourite, a sort of The Posies meet Teenage Fanclub, it shows yet another string to the bow of WCMC and also underlines the band's development as this album is the band's most impressive yet.
It has been great to watch their development. I never ever expected them to come up with a song as frantic and Mid 80s fuzz as Serendipity and I'm delighted that they have. I could rightly say that this is the best West Coast Music Club album yet, but that would be easy. However this is much more than that. The band has evolved and continues to evolve. Well done all!
You can listen to and buy the album here. It is available as a CD or download.
......................................
No comments:
Post a Comment