HOLIDAY CROWD - Over The Bluffs

Let's get one thing straight right away: Holiday Crowd are indeed a four-piece but they're not from Manchester. They're from Toronto (Scarborough, to be precise). It's hard to believe, yet the hands that carved the seven dazzling gems of "Over The Bluffs" seem far more at home with hockey sticks and maple syrup than with gold-rimmed teacups and threadbare home furnishings. Not that it matters much, really, since if you've missed (perhaps on purpose) yet another eye-wateringly pricey, all-encompassing Smiths boxset full of records you already own (on both vinyl and CD, naturally), "Over The Bluffs" is the perfect tonic to revive a flagging mood.

The four Canadians don't put a foot wrong on their debut, delivering a tender, gorgeous amarcord of throbbing Smiths-like sehnsucht the likes of which hasn't been heard in a very long time, both in compositional precision and sheer inspiration. Maybe it's because the provinces are a country as big as the world, more or less identical in color and flavor at every latitude; maybe it's because time in small towns moves like a viscous substance, flowing (too) slowly for things to truly change; maybe it's because we've listened to the same records for too many years (quite likely) — but still, when "While She Waits", "In My Arms" or "Pennies Found" kick in, with their dazed phrasing, the dim light of drawn curtains and pleasantly faded reverbs, it really does feel as though not a single moment has passed since "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now". As if we'd been fatally stuck there all along, floating inside the fragile bubble of an intuition that's still true, today just as it was back then.

The band nonetheless ranges through a dazzling slalom of references: in "Painted Like A Forest" (a hit that's certainly not to be overlooked), for instance, singer Imran Hanif's voice brushes up against tones redolent of the best Brett Anderson. Elsewhere, there emerge clear signs of a deep familiarity with the most obscure and gloriously eccentric corners of British indie (McCarthy, 1000 Violins or Jasmine Minks, as someone rightly suggested, to the delight of anyone who still listens to and collects bands of that ilk). "Tender Age" then sounds like a vintage b-side from the most inspired Gene (remember them?), while "Tiresome" almost brings Strangelove back to mind.

While we wait for the proper album, which we can already imagine brimming with the subtlest delights, the seven beautiful songs of "Over The Bluffs" write a new, meaningful and inspired page in the eternal Smiths-like novel. A new chapter in the story of a feeling that, by now, is a certainty: it will never stop telling us who we are.

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29/02/2012