Bringing Home The Ashes

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Granted, 1988’s <i>Bringing Home the Ashes</i> might be too quickly dismissed as '80s U.K. pop that “shimmers” and doesn't do much else. And the band was christened after a Hans Christian Anderson fairytale. But those elements shouldn’t deter you. Fact is, this album is rife with hooks as far as the ear can hear and would fit in any collection that also houses The Smiths, New Order, and the early Church. Singer Paul Simpson is blessed with a voice whose pleasing tone and phrasing recall Morrissey at his most gracious, while Jeremy Kelly is a gifted guitarist in the Johnny Marr school of restraint. His playing whirrs, chimes, and rings above and beneath the melodies. Propulsive bass and washy keyboard melodies push like New Order, too. The songs collar themes of heartsick youth (“Young Manhood,” “Now and Forever”), marriage as suicide (“Bitterness”), coal-grey life in working-class Britain (“Northern England”), and fallen angels (“Mythical Beasts,” “Arch Angels”). Yet there’s an overall gentle and happy earnestness to the rock here. It relaxes and pulls you in. It’s both sweeping and grandiose, and that’s not a dis.

via Apple Music

The Clerk says

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