5 keepers
keeper avg .444
Trembling Blue Stars's third album as another one about a break-up, and possibly another about frontman Robert Wratten's relationship with former band-mate Anne Mari Davies. Though heartbreak is a bummer Wratten continues to create beautiful textures to accompany his tales of despair, this time with more synth textures. Opening track "Ripples"**** alternates minimal verses with shimmering choruses, fully of jangly guitar and washes of synth.The continental lounge-y "To Leave It Now", with a bass line to die for, is another early album highlight, though it's the back half of the album that really starts to pay off, starting with the pillowy "Back To You"****; 6:41 of it is a little long but broken up in the middle by some hypnotic synth noise they seem to float by quickly. The relatively chipper "Snow Showers"***** resembles John Lennon's sublime "Woman", with the addition of slide guitar that subtly drives the entire song. In the shadowy "Sleep"**** Wratten's ethereal guitar is joined by a buzzy drone after verses, like Greg Dulli (Afghan Whigs) crashing the Cocteau Twins. Generally, with a sound combining Badly Drawn Boy and Belle And Sebastian, as only a Brit like Wratten (or a Scot) could get away with sounding this precious, there is literally not a bad song in the bunch. The briefly-acclaimed "Dark Eyes"****, bookends the album similarly to "Ripples", with minimal verses and lush choruses, concluded dispassionately "And my life sleeps away Away as I wait, To gaze into them Like it's just going to happen".
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