I've used the word 'majestic' more than once over the various reviews and commentaries here, and it's one I'm not trying to use lightly. As you might have guessed (and those who know the fact I flat out adore the Chameleons, my second favorite band ever, will understand), if something that sounds like it's out to fill or take over the universe while still making that connection that doesn't leave you oppressed or coldly impressed by technical skill, then I will likely love it.
All of which goes to explain why I love this. Right from the first tune, "Eastside Stories," when a brooding keyboard line suddenly chimes into guitar territory and lifts, higher and higher and out, a take-off. It surrounds, it takes you with it, and when you realize the lyrics rewrite West Side Story in a new context (the band is Australian, but the context could be anywhere, really), and you hear a mournful voice repeat and conclude, "Somewhere there's a place for us…," the tears well up and hit you hard. When you're stuck somewhere and hope not merely to get out but to get out with the one you love as well, this is the soundtrack stuck in your head.
It's not all the Lovers do, admittedly, and their quite fine, up and down and sideways career has touched on many a height in different and interesting ways. This, their second album, is still my favorite of them all. Some called them shoegazey, but no. Echo and the Bunnymen-like? At parts, musically, sure. It's that post-punk vibe that wants to make rich music out of something so relatively prosaic as a rock band line-up (with just the right amount of keyboards, and how they stick them in and work with them still impresses me -- consider "Got Off On It," which also flat out rocks, as an example) and gets away with it because it applies itself, thus that Chameleons reference, which has its place here as well. But there's a nicely different vibe here throughout, one I can't easily put my finger on. Like the way "Promenade" suddenly breaks down to a stripped-down feel only to return with rushing sounds of crowds, subways, more all beneath the well-sculpted roar.
Part of it, admittedly, is the fact that both male and female voices take to the fore, and that said female player/singer Philippa Nihill has a cool but not cold emotion in her voice, touched with regret and endless wondering. So "Holiday," for instance, as perfect a wondering about how empty a visit can be as, say, "Holidays in the Sun," or is that "Everyday is Like Sunday," perhaps, over a lulling but not comforting arrangement that chills and aches with a strange beauty. Perhaps I could mention the way "I Was Right" rides the basic tech pulse over her reflection on what ended as the music swirls, then kicks in with just the right acoustic touches at points.
And so forth. It's an album I keep discovering things in, keep realizing there's just that little bit more in it. And I think of how "Waves" rides a minimal crash of feedback and zone until "Your Eyes" turns into a monstrous surge of life and energy that can only equal the Chameleons' "One Flesh," and I am beyond content. I am stone cold raptured and lost in it.