When an album takes a fair whack of time to create there’s generally an equal ratio of pressure for said album to be good, so, two years in the making, and 5 years after the band originally formed in North London, The Brian Jacket Letdown’s debut, ‘Darling Bit Me’ is one that’s already set a pretty high precedent for itself. There’s little to worry about though for, if there’s one thing that sets this debut apart from a host of other folk rock purveyors, it’s the feeling of space, the genuinely laid back tone and all those other things that can only come from an album recorded for the love of it rather than as a quick fix, zeitgeist- chasing chart scheme. Time, it seems, is of the essence.
The Brian Jacket Letdown are a kind of heart-warming cross between Neil Young, The Shortwave Set and Johnny Flynn: effortlessly charming, sweetly lulling and capable of making you utterly fall in love with the band from the very first listen. With this, their first LP proper, they’ve managed to craft the soundtrack to those hazy summer evenings spent with your nearest and dearest in a field somewhere in the middle of nowhere, the contended sigh when you realise everything’s pretty good really, or any number of other picture postcard moments; frankly, it’s pretty gorgeous.
As such, it’s almost impossible to pick out standout tracks from the release, but the blessed out semi-psychedelia of ‘A Light Array’, complete with glitchy ending, or the ukulele-driven shanty of opener, Sometimes’ with its Sergeant Pepper-esque brass section are easily enough to convince if you have even the tiniest shred of heart.
‘Darling Bit Me’ is, quite simply, sublime.
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