A testament to the unbridled beauty of pop; this record will bring you back home.
We’ve all been lost at some time. Not just geographically – a wrong turn here, the absence of an up-to-date map, a lack of considered planning is a set of circumstances we’ve all found ourselves dealing with at some time – but psychologically.
A lack of clear direction in life, conflict instructions from external parties, a sense of dislocation between the prevailing cultural and political trends and one’s own internal compass. Left untreated, it can be the recipe for disaster, and tragedy; transposed to musical form and it can be a thing of pop beauty.
And so it is with The Lovetones’ latest album, Lost. Recorded again in the tri-territorial space of Sydney, the Blue Mountains and Los Angeles, Lost continues The Lovetones’ perennial search for the classic pop song. The album’s stand-out tracks are the first two songs:City Meets The Stars is a lush pop track that narrates the perennial quest for romantic perfection with Beatles-esque quality; Chinatown Busride wanders into the sparkling territory of psychedelic pop where even the slightest glimpse of beauty is the cause for celebration.
On Coming Home pop sensibility blends with rural folk; the title track trades Ray Davies and village greens for George Harrison and sub-continental pleasures, before Matthew Sigley comes to the party with the charming This Great Romance. Hurricane blends of the proto-pop brilliance of The Byrds with the syncopated elegance of The Stone Roses, while Come Dance With Me channels the lyrical and melodic charm of Hugh Cornwall at his most poetic.
Free Yourself picks up where John Lennon left off before ego, anger and drugs blunted his creative edge, and Earth’s Great Sleep marries the intensity of David Bowie with the environmental consciousness of David Suzuki.
Pop music is a deceptively complex artform; in the hands of those that understand it, it can look as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. Lost is testament to the unbridled beauty of pop; if you ever happened to be lost, this record will bring you back home.
