Delays Faded Seaside Glamour Rough Trade, 2004 amazon

you are nearer than heaven
i get the feeling i get nearer every day

I'm still trying to figure out whether that's a compliment or not. And the same can be said for the 2004 debut album by Southampton's Delays, Faded Seaside Glamour. I downloaded this album a while ago, but didn't sit up and take notice until i saw the video for "Nearer Than Heaven" on MTV2's Subterranean. An instantly gratifying guitar pop tune that had me declaring these guys as "The La's for 2004". On third and fourth listens to the song, i revised that proclamation to state that they are the second coming of britpop. I mean britpop in the classic Suede or Cast sense (see? the La's parallels just don't stop), not in the evolved sense of Coldplay or Doves. The song is an immediate classic that deserves to be placed alongside Gene's "Sleep Well Tonight" and the Stone Roses's "What the World is Waiting For". It's the rest of the album that has me puzzled. "Wanderlust" and "Long Time Coming" have definite attraction, the former with its unusual steel drum melody and the latter with an almost Verve-like dynamic. But somewhere around "You Wear the Sun" i began to wonder if i was attaching too much significance to this band simply because, as they sing, they are "nearer than heaven". Only time will tell, but for now they certainly deserve inclusion on the soundtrack to the summer.

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