Hope And Adams

Some bands graft and grind and eventually come up with something that cuts the mustard; others produce music of wondrous, lilting beauty without seeming to break sweat. Wheat, the pride of Massachusetts, belong quite emphatically in the latter camp.

Many of their songs get by on two chords, but those two chords resonate with such pathos and bittersweet feeling it’s like they’ve never been struck before. Add to this singer Scott Levesque’s understated, slightly weary – but never wearying – voice; a sure-footed band who know the power of a slow-build; and Mercury Rev-producer Dave Fridmann, and you’ve got one of the classiest albums of the year.

Indeed, the opening instrumental, ‘This Wheat’, is almost an epilogue to Deserter’s Songs, with the same type of kaleidoscopic soundscape in evidence but, as has been noted, there are also resonances of older American pop and folk songwriters in their music, including Tom Petty and Jackson Browne, as well as the quieter moments of power pop ubermensch, Matthew Sweet. ‘Don’t I Hold You’, for instance aches with tenderness and bewilderment in equal measures – a golden phoenix fashioned from heartbreak’s ashes.

The same goes for ‘Who’s The One’, another nostalgic sigh of regret under which is wrung out a beautiful guitar melody.

Hope And Adams is a reflective, sober record full of quiet little triumphs that linger in the head and tug at the heart.