sons and daughters, this gift

This, Sons and Daughters’ second album following EP Love the Cup and first full album The Repulsion Box, was a slow burner in this house. We bought this early last year, when we were buying a whole lot more music than now. The two of us together in a music store were pretty much unstoppable: “Which should I buy? X or Y?” “Aw, but I wanted to buy Z.” “You buy Z, then.” “No, you buy X or Y.” “How about we buy both Z and X or Y?” “Okay, which one?” “Well, we’re already getting two albums, let’s get three.” “Should we? Oh, okay. And hey, did you see W over here?” etc. etc.

We became big fans of Sons and Daughters after seeing a video for their song “Johnny Cash” on Rage late one Saturday years ago. They were played virtually to death, such fans we were of the way their Scottish accents made the songs somehow better. Some of the songs were gritty, they were all fantastic up loud, felt a bit dark and gloomy yet fun. Altogether a rollicking good time was had on our thousands of car trips whilst playing their albums, paying special attention to songs like “Rama Lama”, “Taste the Last Girl” and “Dance Me In”.

This Gift was purchased a year ago, listened to about once, then lost in the pile of other albums we bought that day and dismissed as too different by Chris (and not really paid attention to by me, who was probably distracted by something shiny in a corner.) Then, this weekend, while heading to the city for a date with dumplings and crepes, Chris said, “Oh, let’s give this another go in the car, huh?”

And hey ho, I adored it. I’ve listened to the other albums so often I thought I’d probably be a bit disinterested in more of the same type of thickly sung tunes, but instead this feels a bit more upbeat, more rockabilly, and with more hooks that put me in an unexpectedly fantastic mood for the car trip, especially as we found parking pretty much straight away and for free. But I digress.

“Darling” is my favourite track, being listened on repeat by me at the moment, a peppy track that is very danceable, should I ever actually dance (insert hysterical laughter here.) I think there’s something I really enjoy when lines like “twisting in twisting out the knife” are sung in a way that has you picturing the vocalist dressed in a happy blue dress skipping about the place. “Iodine” has another lovely guitar line, a bit slower and perhaps a bit suited to walking quietly home together after, well, I was going to say a movie, but with a name like “Iodine” possibly home from poisoning someone. Perhaps instead I should just stop spamming you with my mental imagery. Ahem.

The album is not so different from the others, after listening to it more. Female vocalist Adele Bethel has more airtime than the usual 50/50 split between her and Scott Paterson, which perhaps changes the tone, but not a lot. The rockin’ “House in my Head” is a fast-paced, car-drivin’ type of track more in tune with their relentless other albums. The first track, “Gilt Complex”, is also similar, in that occasionally during the chorus you can feel like you’re being shouted at. “Split Lips” is lovely but makes me feel sad. The rest are all consistently great, but I’ll spare you my emotional rollercoaster rides, it’s enough that I have to hear myself think them.

At the risk of sounding shallow, I also find them an aesthetically pleasing band:

I will smooch ALL of them.

We are trying to save money at the moment, so finding these little neglected gems in our cd collection is keeping me going during this time of music-buying abstinence. It’s possible that I’m rose-coloured about it because it feels like our first new cd in years. It’s probably about nine or ten days, in reality, but the last one was not counted because of many reasons, i.e. “It’s on sale!”; “But we HAVE to own this one because we have this all of this band’s others”; “It’s the Where The Wild Things Are Soundtrack, come on”, etc. etc.