Bless Big Deal, the duo that soundtrack our moments of anguish. Part of me wants them to cheer up, part of me adores their musical mapping of gritty grazing reality. If their debut album was an exploration of the trials and tribulations of a tortured teenage years, listening to June Gloom is seems that the early twenties are no easier for Kacey Underwood and Alice Costelloe. An aching set of missives in which nothing is concealed, the imperfections and intimacies of life, love, and everything in between have rarely been so simply and beautifully sonically executed. Like its weather pattern, this is the sound of drizzle, but dazzling drizzle, bathed in a warm blanket and gentle hope.
Swapping Spit is the sound of the joy of learning to be yourself again and the difficulties that entails, and the opener Golden Light a study of the need to be satisfied, as Kacey’s vocals pristinely stress the ‘need to be loved in the right way.’ A link to the external via internal emotions, we hear a kick to reality for some on Dream Machines, her shimmering vocals reveal to a deluded lover that ‘what you wanted and what you chose, can’t have both’ and the undulating Pillow warms that If you play with me / you’re playing with fire.’ Easy languor, thrillingly alive contemplation, and sympathetically seething, the variety of emotions executed are all beguiling.
Latest single In Your Car is one of the more upbeat and frantic songs and Teradactol (available on free download) flows and chugs, thrashing into a sure fire gig ending song. Final track Close Your Eyes is something of a slow burner, breaking hearts of all those who listen with its lyrics ‘I won’t ask why, if it was love, we let it die.’ Just when you think things are over it erupts into a grand, vibrant and vital riff, to remind you that everything goes on. Utterly charming.