Photo credit: Kalpesh Lathigra
Just over a year after the release of their debut album, The Waeve (real-life couple Graham Coxon from Blur and Rose Elinor Dougall of The Pipettes) return with ‘City Lights’, a bolder, brashier affair with an even more personal approach.
The title track opens the album, landing in the sweet spot where disco meets art rock. With Graham’s trademark squelchy, squeaking guitar, sax breakdowns and a claim of ‘These city lights, they belong to me’, it sounds somewhat akin to a strutting Richard Hawley. ‘You Saw’ is more nostalgic with its Wall of Sound atmospherics and prog as you’re invited to ‘come out of the darkness’.
‘Moth to the Flame’ has a Trevor Horn-esque sound with added vocoder-aided vocals while ‘I Belong to’ finds Graham in contemplative mood as he promises ‘I will always be there when you need me’ and how he is ‘Happy tonight because I belong to you’. There’s a change of pace – it almost feels like a visit to Laurel Canyon – on ‘Simple Days’ before ‘Broken Boys’ takes the record into a choppy Pavement direction with riffs, effects and the words: ‘You’re dressing up just to take them down’.
A poignant standout that was written for the couple’s daughter, ‘Song for Eliza May’ is a folksy tale of parenthood and anxiety – ‘Child of mine, how will you make your way through this world?’ – before ‘Druantia’ takes you into a space-jazz symphony that is equal parts Spiritualized and Squid. ‘Girl of the Endless Night’ finds Rose and Graham exploring different cultural sounds with glee, although this is aided by the plea ‘Don’t let me be alone again’.
The album closes with ‘Sunrise’, a six-minute epic that veers between love and lust, sparkle and sax and gorgeous dream pop aesthetics: ‘All my dreams wrapped up in you’. On ‘City Lights’, The Waeve once again show that they are shining stars.
