PEACE ‘IN LOVE’ – Album Review

I have to admit to being quite a hard act to please when it comes to receiving a new record and taking to it straight away. It normally takes my suspicious ears a good few listens before they allow something to be accepted. It was therefore a welcomed rarity when Peace’s ‘In Love’ landed in my inbox. Produced by former Arctic Monkeys producer Jim Abiss, the album lives up to raised expectations of last years acclaimed EP, ‘Delicious‘ and points to a successful 2013 for the Worcester quartet.

The album kicks in with ‘Higher Than The Sun’. Although borrowing the name from the Primal Scream classic it’s at the complete other end of the scale. As the intro kicks in it sounds like it could be The Horrors but that is replaced by a My Bloody Valentine style scuzzy stomper. The bold chorus drenched by Harrison Koisser’s vocals and the skatty guitars set the scene for the rest of the album.

‘Follow Baby’ is up next with its chaotic drum beat and swirling Ride like guitars with a grunge twist. It’s quickly apparent that there will be no pissing about with extended guitar solos or mind twisting outros on this album, just straight to the point 3 minute indie pop. Nice.

‘Lovesick’ comes next which is a perfect pained indie love song. As Koisser sings ‘I want to get lovesick with you’ it makes you feel 16 again and no one would raise an eyebrow if you were to say it was a lost Cure track. The dreamy ‘Float Forever’ then brings the pace down before ‘Delicious’ grabs your attention back with a swaggering groove which will sound perfect in a dark dingy indie club on a Friday night. ‘Waste of Paint’ has more than a bit Foals about it and ‘Sugarstone’ stays on the same vibe and could be a Blur number from Modern Life is Rubbish.

Throughout the album you can’t get away from the sound of the better part of early 90’s British indie, before it turned into Britpop and became shit. Whilst listening to personal favourite ‘Toxic’, you can imagine selecting it on the Jukebox in The Good Mixer whilst swigging back a bottle of hooch and watching Game On when you get in.

If I was wanting to be picky I could point at the album being somewhat one dimensional and there are a lot of obvious influences banded about without actually giving anything new. That would be being overly critical however and taking the gloss of what is a superb debut offering. As album closer ‘California Daze’ finishes, you automatically go to press play to play the album again. And there is not much of a better compliment than that is there?

@gigslutz_steve