Lemonpop UK (label)
13 June 2011 (released)
24 May 2011
Five minutes after slamming the door after another bloody day at work The Brights had me bouncing around the room like a mad thing on happy tabs.
They are simply gorgeous to listen to and their jangly and upbeat bonhomie is guaranteed to drag you up out of the worst of moods (I think unhappiness is a four letter word in Brights world).
They have touches of so many of those eighties pop bands – echoes of The Housemartins, Style Council and Haircut 100 not to mention Squeeze but those bands were making music at a time when people thought powder blue had depth, Princess Di was the epitome of cool and a beret was a rakish accessory – and everyone was doing it.
The Brights are playing their brand of feel good pop in a world where the world currencies are collapsed , where the government is ripping huge swathes of money out of the state and where the world is in imminent danger of a natural catastrophe not to mention war and famine – in fact in a world that desperately needs bright and breezy and maybe the Brights can turn the world back to the light and away from the darkness – all I know is that they bring a huge smile to my face and lift in my heart and that can’t be any bad thing.
Standouts on the album are probably ‘A Cameo Can’t Last Forever’ with a rhythm like the Style Council and a superb bassline courtesy of Mark Newton, the achingly lovely ‘Barricade Of Love’ – slow and bittersweet, really showing off David Burgess’ vocal skills – and ‘Pride Step Aside’, a superb broken love affair gem.
They aren’t just about jangly bounce and poppy lightness, they actually have written a number of excellent three minute pop songs and if it wasn’t for the preponderance of so-called ‘R&B’ they would be a massive draw for Radio 1 as well as 6.
Make sure you get a listen – they should be THE band of the summer.
