Blossoms, yet another indie wonder from the ever-so-fertile Northwest, in tune with the Manchester mayor turned PM, have had a string of No. 1 albums, and their latest continues to display an uncanny ability to tailor infectiously danceable hit material, as good for the heart as the head.
This will delight their many fans, with oven-ready singalong catchiness and a feel-good factor steeped in contagious love. This isn’t music for solitary introspection but a vehicle for communal fun.
There is a ruthless and seductive efficiency about the band’s ability to create an irresistible combination of simplicity and sophistication, embellished by surprises that never disturb, but feel instantly as if there were no other musical way forward and out. Although there is little else to connect them, Blossoms remind me of Steely Dan, who dazzled us with something very close to perfection. So smoothly eloquent that it always felt a tad cold. Lead singer and main writer Tom Ogden has tons of charm, without even falling into sweetness or cliché. He is very present, and ably supported by delicious harmonies, and backing vocal responses that immediately engage voices other than his own, avoiding ego-driven excess. Flawlessly executed guitar and synth riffs draw you in and make you feel part of the celebration and entertainment.
This is music that includes, and therefore invites to party, to be part of a joyous whole.
There are, simply put, two streams of boy-bands in the history of British pop – the sweet charm and harmony of the early Beatles (and Hollies), and the sensual grit of the Rolling Stones. Blossoms are very much part of the former tradition, appealing to the love-struck adolescent in us all. Several of the new songs here -notably, “Where Have you Been My Whole Life” and “Falling into Love” allude to the exhilaration of fresh passion, as if the world had just been made new: ”Nothing makes you feel more alive, like washing on the line”, they sing - and we’re filled with that sense of the bliss that erupts when one’s met a kindred soul.
Many of the songs have the optimistic bounce of disco, a lightness and rhythmic quality tailor-made for the sense of imminent catastrophe that surreptitiously but surely darkens our days. This is escapist music, but so brilliantly polished that it passes through without ever alluding to the horror. A little too smoothly perhaps, leaving us only superficially satisfied, as if we’d been tricked by the show-stopping elegance of the music Blossoms so flawlessly make.
