LUCKSMITHS - Warmer Corners

Infinite and yet circular pathways of pop. Here's another album, and above all another convincing album, from Lucksmiths, fine purveyors of a rounded, dreamy brand of music, ideally picking up the sceptre once held by Felt in the 80s and later by Field Mice.

Irresistible jingle-jangle, crystalline melodies and an existential streak close to Morrissey and Magnetic Fields, albeit a touch more lighthearted. "Warmer Corners" has nothing to envy from any pop album of 2005, since it achieves the one goal every pop album should aspire to - namely, containing good songs; and the band is anything but short of them, indeed they're spoiled for choice.

"Warmer Corners" arrives two years after the excellent "Naturaliste", and it's still a lovely listen, relying on immediate, classically-touched compositions, for the most part free of the orchestral overlays that had characterised the Lucksmiths sound back in the days of "Why That Doesn't Surprise Me". Donald-Monnone are the golden duo of Australian indie, capable of intimate, personal lyrics, for when a wool blanket and a bit of good music, holed up in the alcove of your own bedroom, are the only antidote to heartache. So the airy melodies of "The Music Next Door" and "Sunlight in A Jar" go rolling by, with their zig-zagging, grade-school guitars; the slide guitar on "If You Lived Here, You'd Be Home Now" cuts straight to the soul; and the Simon & Garfunkel-style folk harmonies of "Fiction" delight.

Some jaded old fox might object to the Lucksmiths' worth, claiming that songs like these can be heard by the hundreds; maybe so, but how can you not be moved in the presence of a "Putting It Off And Putting It Off", where in under three minutes the entire essence of pop music seems to be condensed, between quick-grab refrains, sequences of a few simple, immediate chords and little orchestral flourishes that hit you right in the gut.

Lucksmiths know how to write excellent songs, nothing more, and that's enough.

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01/02/2010