Stockport Indie rockers Blossoms release their new album ‘Gary‘ this month which is produced by the band’s regular collaborator James Skelly of The Coral, alongside Jungle’s Josh-Lloyd Watson, who produced “What Can I Say After I’m Sorry?” And “Nightclub”. This is the bands fifth album and the tracks themselves are based on different stories, mostly from personal experience.
The album opens with ‘Big Star’ which according to Tom Ogdon was written “after seeing a well-known music journalist in the Chateau Marmont, I debate going over and introducing myself but then shyness gets the better of me and I don’t.” It`s a swaying satiric ironic musing. The funky `What Can I Say After I’m Sorry?` was co-written with CMAT and produced by J Lloyd from Jungle. The band shared that “We’ve always been big fans of Jungle so we reached out to them last year about working together. Sonically, it feels like a new avenue for the band but it still retains the core Blossoms DNA“. It`s a melodic disco-tinged earworm of a number.
Title track `Gary` is an amusing tale of a giant fibreglass gorilla statue which was stolen from a Lanarkshire garden centre. It rolls along with handclaps and harmonic “ba ba ba`s” that will have you singing along. Apparently ‘I Like Your Look’ is according to singer Tom a “tipping of the hat to Blondie’s ‘Rapture’ and a wink to Joan Baez ‘Time Rag,’ and lyrically it explores a tongue-in-cheek approach to high fashion..” It`s all that and more with the vocals shared in a kind of Eminem rapped style at times.
`Nightclub` is a dreamy disco pop-tinged meditation on a night out and all it entails in heading to a club. There`s a drum led kind of rhythmic rolling feel to `Perfect Me` which is about someone who wants to become flawless with health and hygiene almost heading to a Howard Hughes like obsession.
Tom Ogdon has shared that ‘Mothers’ is an ode to his and Joe Donovan’s friendship and it references the fact that their mothers were friends back in the eighties. A tender melodic kind of bro-mantic love song of sorts. There`s a similar summery vibe to `Cinnamon` but this time it`s possibly a reflection on adolescent romance.
`Slow Down` is another dreamy illusory tale of deciding that a relationship is moving too fast and maybe a more measured approach should be undertaken. The album closes out with `Why Do I Give You The Worst Of Me?` another CMAT co-write and it kind of nods towards a more previous indie sound the band had.
It seems that the quintet of Tom Ogden (lead vocals, guitar), Charlie Salt (bass, backing vocals), Josh Dewhurst (lead guitar, percussion), Joe Donovan (drums) and Myles Kellock (keyboards, synthesizer, backing vocals) have just come together to make music that they enjoy as friends, with a sense of freedom that only having your own label can inspire. They have shared that during the writing process, they were listening to a lot of Bowie, Blondie, and Hall & Oates and there are shades of all these and much more in this entertaining half hour of aural pleasure.
Rating 8.5/10
