★★★★☆
Wild Nothing’sLife Of Pauseis a profoundly textural release.
It’s an album designed as much for the taste buds and the nerve endings as the ears; one you could even plunge your arms into, as though submerging them in a barrel of paint and oil.
There’s a whiff of nostalgia to the record too – ’80s-inspired electro work dominates the proceedings, with a dash of ’90s shoegaze fuzz added in for good measure – but never in a way that feels reductive or parodic. The pleasures to be derived from songs like ‘A Woman’s Wisdom’ or the album’s excellent title track aren’t carbon-copied from a bygone era. Though they adopt a language and a tone popular in the past, they have enough idiosyncrasies to feel like self-contained, unique efforts.
Better still, though the album is unashamedly jaunty – the driving, delicious ‘To Know You’ is a genuine crowd-pleaser in the optimal sense of the word – there’s an overriding sense of melancholy to keep things balanced. Loss deeply permeates tracks like ‘Whenever I’, as sadness cuts through the sax solos and oozing choruses. “I thought you’d be good for me,” croons Jack Tatum, “But I know what you are now”.
It’s lemon and sugar; it’s pebbles and cotton; it’s darkness and light; and it’s perhaps the best album Wild Nothing have yet released.
Wild Nothing’sLife Of Pauseis out now through Captured Tracks/Remote Control.
