This is most easily described as an album of acoustic pop, with the mood elevated by a framework of handclaps and a crisply strummed guitar. Despite the name, this is far from morose music, having more in common with early Dodos stuff than the kind of dingy laments you can get when a nice young man picks up an acoustic guitar. In fact it isn’t until the gorgeous second half of rather schizophrenic closerRemain in Love Straight to the End that things get a bit more downbeat, but by that time you’re ready for it.
I think that what I’ve always enjoyed about both the Shaky Hands and now this music probably comes from the combination of the way Delffs sings and the way he plays the guitar: I am never really all that sure if the predominant feeling it conjures is wistful or upbeat. Sometimes the pace of the music and the vocal delivery contradict one another a little, creating a pleasantly shifting palette of emotions.
It’s not the most insistent or attention grabbing release, this, but I am really enjoying it. And I am really glad that Delffs is back, too.
