BILL PRITCHARD - Haunted

It's also time for Bill Pritchard to gather his thoughts for an album that partly recaptures the charm of his distant 1987 debut, the first of five projects that have marked the poetic, melancholic and elegant style of the English musician, who found fertile ground in France for his pop wanderings somewhere between Smiths and Pet Shop Boys.

Truth be told, the new millennium didn't start off in the best way for Pritchard, with the controversial "By Paris, By Taxi, By Accident". After a full ten years of silence, the lukewarm-at-best "A Trip To Coast" restored the bond with fans; a relationship then strengthened by a series of decent but unremarkable albums.

"Haunted" stands as his best work since "Jolie": the interplay between Lloyd Cole-style melodies and a noble disenchantment worthy of Robyn Hitchcock works beautifully, yielding a set of bittersweet songs as inclined to chamber-pop as to psychedelic folk-pop, a cluster of simple yet solid melodies, graced by an honest emotional complicity.

"Haunted" is a lively album, concise and direct enough to seem lightweight ("Perpetual Tourist"), even bold as it crosses r&b grooves with pop-psych and doo-wop reverberations ("Smile"), ready to scratch with a dazed folk that smells of grass, rain and emotions tied to pleasant memories of the past, while keyboards and sax drift along in the background ("Intrigue And Wonder").

Echoes of 70s British folk-pop ("The Quarter") and poetic baroque-pop images ("Curious Feeling") slide gently toward those bohemian accents that have always been second nature to the musician ("Suburb Of The World"), fertile ground for a tango-paced track not without a sly theatricality ("Sunset In Poland"), but also for a deliberately imperfect ballad accompanied by an old drum machine ("Imperfect").

Masterfully arranged, "Lillie" is one of those melodic, biting flashes of inspiration that have defined Pritchard's style, while the gentle title track represents an unexpected romantic surge, an unusual song of love and friendship that Bill delivers with his usual finely poetic sensitivity.

"Sweet Melody", however, is the most atypical and original track on the album: a weave of vintage keyboards, organ and piano frames a melody that could have come from the same sessions as Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder's "Ebony And Ivory", but with far more intriguing results.

"Haunted" is the album Bill Pritchard's fans had been waiting for, a collection of elegant, never banal songs, a creative triumph for an artist who, right around now, turns 62 and looks back on a career built on discretion and good taste.

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01/04/2026