During lockdown, lifelong friends David Long (Into Paradise) and Shane O’Neill (Blue In Heavan) collaborated to make their debut album ‘Moll & Zeis’. Written and recorded separately due to the pandemic, it was still blessed with a remarkable amount of humanity.
The album is available to buy on their Bandcamp page.
This time around, they were in the studio together to write, arrange and produce everything on their second album ‘Age of Finding Stars’. However, it wasn’t as planned. According to O’Neill, these are the “songs leaked out of the cracks” when trying to make the follow-up album.
The album’s centerpiece is ‘Stickyblackheart’, a devastating tale of someone losing their love. O’Neill’s time with Martin Hannett in the 80s was well spent as his brooding landscapes come alive once more. The atmospheric emotion of the Engineers combined with the bugged-out isolation of Brian Jonestown Massacre’s ‘Methodrone’ conjure a space that is not for the faint-hearted.
Album opener ‘Greeneyessing’ fades up with a pain so raw, it will make you step back from the stereo. The guitars tap into the Doves’ debut album with the shoegaze of Slowdive. Together they provide an intro where regrets ruminate in the mind with anguish so vast, it’s difficult to see a way through. This is met with Long and O’Neill’s astonishing poetry. This is a letter to all to seize the day and cherish every moment with those you love.
On ‘Bruised’, a bitterness rises that is all-consuming. Grief-stricken, howling at the world? God? The departed? The soulful delivery of “You are a liar, every word, every day /You are a liar, understood, all around the world / You are a liar, lighthouse, miles in from the shore” conjures the imagery of a soul becoming detached from reason and love. This is enhanced by the Johnny Marr-esque guitar solo. The urgency of his cameos on The Charlatans’ ‘Different Days’ (Plastic Machinery & Not Forgotten) with hints of Ride’s Andy Bell emerge but, with sadness that’s burrowed deep into the soul.
The grieving process is lit up expertly during the back-to-back songs ‘Nightpoetsofbeijing’ and ‘Worldpassingby’. They’re a journey inextricably linked by grief and all that comes with it. The former is the album’s only instrumental piece and broods like Unkle before ebbing away gently. It’s the introduction of birdsong that grabs all the attention though. It’s the first flicker of light and suggests our lost soul has found some solace. As the track fades, the birdsong flitters around electronica to suggest a new path, however different and from before, has been found. Alas, ‘Worldpassingby’ plunges back into the void with the electronic glitches and hints of Ryan Adams’ guitars circa ‘Prisoner’. It’s as though the hope of the previous track is being punished for allowing the light in:
“It's just the world passing by / I don't feel anything / I can't feel anything”
What started as an unplanned album has turned into a masterpiece of grief-stricken songwriting. Devastating lyrics and lost soundscapes unite on one of 2022’s albums of the year.