The High Wire Bring a Little Sunbaked Trip Pop to Snowy London
Wednesday, 13 January 2010
Written by Matt Hamm
Following in the footsteps of the current crop of trippy pop music, bathed in exciting beats that soothe the ears and cuddle your brain, come The High Wire. A trio from London, set to cover the charts in a colourful dreamy haze with their March released debut album The Sleep Tape.
This 12 song LP is delightful stumble through a beautiful field of smiling sun, dancing flowers and sun-baked corn blowing in a refreshing cold breeze. Each track growing like a sunflower, rising from the ground to its golden yellow finale. Letting In The Light and Honeycomb are equally wistful, whilst It’s No Secret is a romantic affair with singer Tim Crompton lamenting “I said my goodbyes but I can’t shake you from my mind”. The new single, Odds & Evens, is upbeat, uplifting and stands up as the strongest song from The Sleep Tape. It’s dreamily infectious pop, without being annoying or repetitive. Caught in the same spider’s web as bands such as Spiritualized and Mercury Rev, it works well to distance itself and cut its own hole away from the current indie chart batch.
But The High Wire also prove they can stray from the sun kissed guitars and far-away keyboards. As the album rolls on the A Future Ending takes you down a slip road of dirtier drumbeats and murkier guitar chords. It’s early naughties Brit pop in essence, while drawing pleasantly from the simple yet effective tone of Pixies-esque vocals, working the line “Now that the King is dead, long live the king” into your skull, harpooning itself to your inner ear.
And it’s this feeling of not being able to shake The High Wire from your senses that will see this band succeed. There’s not necessarily a little something for everyone in there and after supporting Coldplay on a sell out tour, they may be aiming a little bit mainstream for some. But like a warm summer’s day high pollen count their spaced out tunes stay in the air, gently prodding your frontal lobes to listen again. First single The Midnight Bell ticks this box, and with its March 1st release, is sure to start the spring off with blossoming delight.
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