I sometimes wonder why I love music that makes you ache? It must be some kind of pleasure/pain thing. Is everyone the same? I’m going to guess not. Imagine just enjoying relentlessly happy/fun music, so weird. Once upon a time I was about 13 years old and had a conversation with a friend about what he looked for in music, he was a metal fan and said, as if it were obvious, ‘fun’. I think he was quite bemused by the expression on my face. Not that there’s anything wrong with fun, but the ache goes so much deeper.
Anyway, enough about me, because this is one absolutely gorgeous song and it aches to high heaven, so I’m all onboard.
Tenant from Zero (aka Paul Darrah) lives in an oh so lush world where the Pale Fountains, Aztec Camera and Danny Wilson rule, undoubtedly a pretty nice place to be. Actually I’d go as far as to suggest this song shares a tiny bit of DNA with the Bible’s Graceland, yes that good.
The ominously titled, This Can’t Wait ‘til Later unspools the bitter truths of a disintegrating relationship. Let’s face it, if you hear those words, trouble lies not far ahead. It doesn’t spare the hurt, but wraps everything up in multiple layers of sophistipop bliss, heck it even features backing vocals from Ole Åleskjær from The Loch Ness Mouse (who co-produced the forthcoming album “Flight“) and Estella Rosa of Nah… respectively. Lyrically we’re treated to plenty of ruefully sardonic wit, trying to crack a smile as life falls apart around you and balancing domestic mundanity with caustic ultimatums. About two thirds of the way in the ante is upped with a brief but plangent guitar solo and we hit the beautifully emphatic final 30 seconds. If I could drive, had a convertible and wasn’t so self consciously English I could see myself cruising on a summer’s day with the top down, blasting this out to a sadly indifferent world…
Remember ‘real’ singles? This feels like the genuine article from back in the days when you spent your hard saved pocket money in your favourite local record shop and rushed home to find out if a song was as great as it sounded on the radio. If it wasn’t, it was crushing, but thankfully This Can’t Wait ‘til Later passes the test and leaves me with one question: can the forthcoming album keep to this standard…? I hope so.
The album “Flight” will be out on the 22nd of January and can be pre-ordered here :
The video below was made by the talented Heiko Schneider from TheCatherines.
