Departure Lounge
Too Late To Die Young

I will be honest with you: I purchased the disc in question only because - in a period of disastrous finances - it seemed to be the only one I could afford. And yet, this has made me love it just like the first loves, when, that is, young and penniless, we wandered around record stores waiting for the love at first sight that would give meaning to our sacrifices.
In short, this disc has taken me back to the years of blissful youth.

But I promised I would be honest with you and so I must tell you that "Too Late To Die Young" (what a wonderful title, I thought) doesn't invent anything: the drums play normally, the guitar strums normally, the bass pulses like a regular bass, the voice is a normal voice, no intricate or alien device, no astrophysical pulse, and no futuristic electronic insert.
Pure and simple pop & roll.
And yet... And yet "Too Late To Die Young" plays in my miserable and sad little London room like a clear and bright sky, accompanies my joys and my fears, reminds me of my loves left behind in the land of the Lord's Anointed without melancholy. From the initial "Straight Line To The Kerb," where the guitar weaves sweet Grandaddy echoes, to the instrumental "Tabular Belgians in my Goldfield," obsessive and moody post-rock, with its dark and circular percussion, taking off in the following "Be Good To Yourself," where the voice eerily recalls oblique plots dear to dEUS.
When the atmospheres become rarefied, the guitar gives way to the sensitive voice of Lisa O'Neill ("Animals On My Mind," "Over The Side"), and Departure Lounge show they have well absorbed the lessons of Coldplay and Travis of "The Man Who." Saxophone and trumpet inserts ("King Kong Frown"), jazz echoes ("I Love You"), rock & roll pushes ("Alone Again").

I could sit here boasting to you about the latest wonder from Albion, the latest "The Vines" fashion, the latest "Jet" craze, I could join the hysterical girls for the riffs of "Franz Ferdinand" and "The Veils," but I won't, I don't feel like it. Right now, I have lost my heart to "Departure Lounge" (what a silly name, I thought) and that is enough for me to feel different once more, even far from home.