It probably says more about me, my age and the fact that I might need some new, more up-to-date reference points, but the fact that Memories I Don’t Want reminds me, in part, of Dream Academy’s masterful Life in A Northern Town, fair warms my nostalgic heart. There is a similar intimate quality to the voice, the same gentle rise from ambient pop to dramatic, orchestral indie the same addictive pop melodics, the same sort of outsider fashionability, the same deft use of dynamics. It’s a lot to take on board but in the very best of ways.
And if I sound as if I’m suggesting that they have ripped off this most elegant of songs, that isn’t the case. It is just that few people have been so clever and clued up about making, for want of a better phrase, lush, alternative indie-pop, in the (checks notes, re-checks notes, feels old) 35 years since that truly unique sonic slice was unleashed on an unexpectant pop public, that when you stumble across something which matches its grace and grandeur, scope and scale, it truly stops you in your tracks.
Memories I Don’t Want is a brilliant song, it’s as simple as that. It is lush, wide-screen, orchestral, melodic, eloquent and indeed elegant, awesome and most unexpected. In fact it is a song that I have been waiting hear for (checks notes, double-checks notes, audibly mouths the word wow) 35 years!
