It’s terribly hard not to like Patrick Wolf. A bright, young, wildly creative and frequently feathered thing, a proud son of Albion and (via the granny rule) Ireland, a multi-instrumentalist and doggedly individual songwriter, his twists and turns along the contours of the modern alternative soundscape have been nothing if not ambitious.
This is his fifth album, and on it Wolf executes with fierce precision a sound borne of the old pop stalwarts of love and loss, but mostly love. Lupercalia is a deliriously happy album, boring deep into the marrow of passion, intimacy and contentment with dramatic string arrangements and soaring vocals wrapped skillfully around sinewy electronic pop hooks that speak of a man who feels first and thinks second.
And so to the songs: ‘The City’ is a joyous, vibrant paen to the resilience of love with a big fat saxophone and an itchy bassline; ‘Time Of My Life’ builds lusciously around a driving piano; ‘House’ is a big, rainbow-coloured ode to domestic bliss and ‘The Future’ is so uplifting it’s practically gospel.
To jaded ears and a love-worn-raw spirit, Lupercalia is a lens of optimism that sees the troughs of relationships from the dizzying peaks of passion, and plunges itself heart-first into the cliff face anyway. I like it a lot