24 Star Hotel

To say the second album from Mundy is long overdue is to put it rather mildly. 24 Star Hotel has been done and dusted for over two years, while some of the songs carbon date from as far back as six. Only the proverbial record company misfortunes have prevented Mundy from releasing a follow up to his ’96 debut Jellylegs, and it’s criminal that an album this good took so long to see the light.

The album opens with the fluid grace of ‘Rainbows’ and it immediately feels like summer – a sense of freedom and open spaces, of pleasant frustration and the promise or the threat of bruised hearts. There are songs here you’ll recognize, like ‘Mayday’ from Mundy’s The Moon Is A Bullethole EP and the bright power pop of his last single ‘Mexico’. The winsome sun-sweetened nostalgia that characterised Jellylegs is still strongly accounted for in songs like the glorious ‘Anchor The Sun,’ and ‘July’, but Mundy’s not just the wide-eyed innocent. There’s an aggressive, heavy-lidded sound on ‘Addicted’ and a dark weary edge to the ostensibly gentle ‘Drive’ (“the one about the Spanish hooker”) as well as several intense, intimate tracks where the programmed effects and strings lift and expand the delicate guitar-plucked melody.

Flitting through a variety of moods and styles, 24 Star Hotel fits together perfectly and sounds brand new. Definitely better late than never.