Field Music’s second album sees the Sunderland three-piece delving deeper into intricate pysch-pop arrangements and bucolic atmospherics.
Yet beneath the rustic glow, there is an undertow of darkness: songs shift suddenly, even jarringly, in tempo; clattering rhythms are prone to emerge from nowhere, wreathing the music in a sense of anxiety that belies its nostalgic glimmer. Listen to what frontman Peter Brewis is singing about and Tones Of Town starts to feel starker yet: single, ‘House Is Not A Home’ surfs a swell of self-hate; ‘Gap Has Appeared’ is a stark evocation of rural loneliness that recalls a less jolly Kinks circa Village Green Preservation Society. Elsewhere, ‘Kingston’ and ‘Working To Work’ set out to skewer capitalism – an ambition might seem trite were it not for the exquisite pitch and yaw of the song-writing.
Beautiful, but never callow, here is an album to fall slowly in love with.