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Grade: A
Is the album title a kind of nod to Oasis? I can’t think of a band less like that grunting Manchester convocation, except in the fact that BCNR are one of the biggest bands around right now, as the Gallagher brothers were all those years ago.
Vocalist (of a sort) Isaac Wood has left and with him has gone the occasional temptation to stray into stadium bombast, à la Arcade Fire. Instead, with three women sharing the vocals, we have evanescent chamber pop, occasionally buttressed by a certain glam swagger, almost always underpinned by plucked acoustic guitar and May Kershaw’s superb and imaginative piano. It is a beautiful album, from the sweet harmonies of “Besties,” to the Revolver-era McCartney stylings of “Mary.”
As you might have hoped – if you know the band – some of these off-kilter melodies take a while to resolve themselves and on one or two occasions lose their way entirely, such as on the Nick Drakeish “Nancy Tries To Take The Night.” Then, just momentarily, they begin to sound somewhat like fey, well-bred, proggish folk-jazz refugees.
But for the most part these are cleverly constructed and astonishingly well executed baroque-pop songs, the best of the crop being the dream-pop of “Goodbye (Don’t Tell Me),” the aforementioned “Besties” and “Happy Birthday” with its cute Mick Ronson guitar. Some of the songs stretch to seven minutes, but rarely outstay their welcome. There is not much in the way of, uh, rocking out, it has to be said. So I would pay good money to hear them cover Quo’s “Paper Plane.”
This article was originally published in The Spectator’s June 2025 World edition.
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