Bombay Bicycle Club Ivy and Gold / Flaws (Island)
4/5
By: Theo Krekis
It gets to a point in most albums where I sit expectantly waiting for the obligatory ‘acoustic track’. The Libertines had ‘Radio America’, Kings of Leon offered ‘Trani’, Queens of the Stone Age tried it with ‘Mosquito Song’. Even Busted had ‘Meet You There’.
It’s the track I always envision the band writing at 7 o’clock in the morning having not slept for days on end, debris of empty gin bottles and cigarette butts decorating the room (the glamour of being a rock star). But instead of bringing me an album and making me wait for the acoustic turn, Bombay Bicycle Club have come to my aid and written an entirely acoustic album. Splendid. Magnificent. Thanks very much.
With ‘Ivy and Gold’ and ‘Flaws’, the young London troupe have quite literally picked up from where they left off on their last record (‘The Giantess’ being the last and only acoustic number on their debut album I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose). Yet the empty bottles of gin, cigarette butts and early morning song writing seem to be absent from both songs - it feels as though these tunes were penned after a good night’s sleep and a healthy breakfast of oats and fruit.
This doesn’t mean to say neither of them did it for me – they did. Both tracks are entirely different in their own style and deliverance; ‘Ivy and Gold’ being the upbeat sing-a-long cousin to ‘Flaws’, filled with its melancholic harmonising between lead singer Jack Steadman and Lucy Rose.
Artists in this article: Bombay Bicycle Club
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