The Charlatans – We Are Love
★★★★
BMG
“This is the place/These are the days,” sings Tim Burgess on We Are Love, the title track of The Charlatans’ first LP since 2017’s star-studded Different Days. He means it, too: while this record has a strong line-up of producers – Blood Orange’s Dev Hynes, Spector’s Fred Macpherson, Stephen Street – We Are Love largely swerves its predecessor’s collaborator-heavy approach, pushing The Charlatans front and centre in their universe.
It works beautifully, the band gently distorting their songwriting surfaces with sudden psychedelic sun-spots and experimental flares (such as Peter Gordon’s saxophone on Glad You Grabbed Me, or the sound-collaging Salt Water, out beside the cosmic seaside). Out On Our Own sounds like the Sgt. Pepper run-out groove has leaked in through the studio vents; there’s more unexpected merging of past and present on the North Country Boy-sampling Now Everything. Different days, again, but The Charlatans endure with warmth and style.
We Are Love is out October 31 on BMG.
ORDER: Amazon | Rough Trade | HMV
Tracklisting:
1. Kingdom Of Ours
2. We Are Love
3. Many A Day A Heartache
4. For The Girls
5. You Can’t Push The River
6. Deeper And Deeper
7. Appetite
8. Salt Water
9. Out On Our Own
10. Glad You Grabbed Me
11. Now Everything
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