We said goodbye in February to the review of Westside Cowboy’s previous EP with the hope of soon receiving their debut album and being led back to that unique habitat where guitar pop, indie-rock, and folk go hand in hand. Since then, the hype has continued to grow, as advance singles were released and they traveled thousands of miles across Europe to present their songs. With the album in our hands, we anticipate it’s one of the British debuts of the year.
From the overwhelming start with the unbeatable triad “Kick Stones (The Boys)”, “Paperchains” (sing along with me: And it goes on and on and on), and “Dobro” as three direct hooks to the chest and feet, to the folkie breather at the end of the album, we can decipher the Manchester band’s DNA by tracing the remnants of Pavement and 90s indie rock, the noisy climax of The Velvet Underground, the silence-to-roar catharsis of the Pixies, and campfire folk in the woods.
The sense of technical and conceptual cohesion gives the album the character of a generational record. Guitars and basses sound clean and crystalline, without intending to stand out and working in favor of the songs. In the background, the drums, without fanfare, propel the band’s energy towards controlled chaos. But, above all, their astonishing ability for melodies and for crafting warm, delicate vocal harmonies stands out. The lyrics contain rage and disillusionment, a nostalgia for the passage of time. With all these ingredients on the table, their songs evoke that feeling of cheerful late-summer melancholy.
Overall, the songs convey the intensity and naturalness of an album that sounds as if it were composed and recorded by the band spread between the bed and the floor of one of their bedrooms. And when the album ends, I stay with them in that room. Don’t come looking for me.