We saw it all. The misplaced notes,
The peep show quotes, the jokes,
The croaked highs, applause and sighs,
As we listened to something new.
Something that harked backed to 80's greats,
Retro royalty with millennial momentum,
In your ear industrialisation,
The hammer that forges future sounds,
Rumbling and tumbling from Birmingham ground,
From strummed marshals and bass that beats and pounds,
Ripples through the cut, the black veins,
Blaring from cars or rattling window panes.
Syncopated flow of funk
And rock.
The be-wild-er-ing lyrics
Psychedelic pop.
Three lads from suburban-city pads and mad dreas
Humility encased by the second-stitched seams,
Box shirts and rolled up jeans,
Functioning adults still living out their teens.
And yet their analog approach, for how they played and the way they wrote
With digital genius captured something bespoke, and so familiar,
Like you might have heard something similar in another life or time,
Where a memory or or place to be is composed into the score.
Harmonious, solo, sharp or flat,
You speak to yourself and you talk right back
Another brick for the palace of futures, (Or mausoleum of memory)
Scrap books or NME, Eagle and Ton then Glastonbury.
- Michael Delaney