0151 by The Night Cafe - Album Review

The debut album from Liverpudlian indie rockers, The Night Cafe, is named for the area dialling code for their home city, and is either the perfect soundtrack to a very late night or a lazy sunny summer afternoon. The lush production, pastoral chords, heavily chorused and delayed guitars build a retro soundscape that is then leavened with a number of hard rocking tunes. The drumming in particular deserves praise throughout for the energy and sense of movement that is conveyed.

Fans of Echo & The Bunnymen, The Cure and The Killers will find much to enjoy here even if at eighteen tracks it is too long, despite a few of those eighteen being sub two minutes. With a little judicious editing it would be improved further, but the potential is clearly there. For example, "Calling Your Name (Again)" is inessential and "I Know (I'm Sure) just drifts along, (for seven minutes!), without the direction much of the rest of the album displays

The highlights are many and include "Endless Lovers", "Strange Clothes", "Felicity" and "Mixed Signals". The peak of the album though is the peerless "Turn" which is one of my songs of the year so far, (more on that here), with an energy, performance and display of craft that elevates it to a different level.

After this solid start I look forward to hearing what they do next.

"It's your turn now, they left me waiting all alone......"

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