The Party’s Over
(Song, By Toad)
Glasgow-grown King Post Kitsch, aka Charlie Ward, might have borrowed the name of Talk Talk’s first album for his own debut, but there’s not much synth pop on offer. Gathered in his magpie’s nest are 1960s garage, 1980s lo-fi and more recent indie melancholy, woven together to often impressive effect. Portland Street Pt. 2, the glorious opener, is like early Pink Floyd but with crunching Spacemen 3 guitars and seasick synths. The Werewolf Hop somehow gets away with the kind of staccato guitar noise beloved of the Britpop crowd, while Bricks And Bones combines a lean Sonic-Youth-type riff with a more-ishly fuzzy chorus. There are times when things get overly derivative, from the Nuggets overdrive of Don’t You Touch My F***ing Honeytone to Bon Iver replica The New Gang, but the quality of the songwriting mostly makes amends. Whatever they’ve been putting in the West of Scotland water supply for the past couple of decades, it shows no signs of running out yet.
