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Faded Seaside Glamour is the debut album by the British band Delays, released on 5 April 2004. The album peaked at number 17 in the U.K. chart.
User Album Review
Delays are a enjoyably delicious dish. It's enlightening to hear a band so proud of...
If the make-up of the music of the Delays appeared in a recipe book, it would be a very expensive list of ingredients; so rich and widespread are the influences that run through their sunshine sound.
Perhaps the most outstanding thing about the much-hyped Southampton four piece is the way they have managed to mesh those influences. They've taken in most of the late 80s and early 90s guitar bands and created Faded Seaside Glamour, an album that has shades of stunning beauty and some thrilling pop in amongst the bulk of the solid, if occasionally ordinary, songs.
There are several glorious moments on the album. "Wanderlust", the album opener, surprisingly kicks off with a steel drum and sounds like a Cocteau Twins cover, as brothers Aaron and Greg Gilbert's vocals combine in a swooning, purring harmony.
That meshed vocal is the delightful highlight of the Delays sound and the songs where it features most highly are the best on offer here. Be it in the heavenly Geneva-esque "Nearer Than Heaven", the driven roll of "Long Time Coming", the breezy "You Wear The Sun", or the gentle emotion of "There's Water Here", the sweeping majesty of the Gilbert boys' voices is pure gold.
They can write a pumping bassline too, even if it does make you suspect that their teenage years were spent listening to the Stone Roses. "Stay Where You Are" features asquelching bass that makes an average song excellent and the closing "On" is Delays' very own "I Am The Resurrection".
Boiled down and cooked out, Delays are a enjoyably delicious dish. It's enlightening to hear a band so proud of their influences and so able to weave them together into something new. Faded Seaside Glamour may not be the most original of albums but it is highly addictive. Dig in.
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