It's been a decade since the last Allo Darlin' record. In that time, singer Elizabeth Morris Innset has offered up music as part of Elva, while drummer Mikey Collins has served up a solo album. Thankfully, the band is back together, and Bright Lights is our reward for the long wait.
From the Go-Betweens-ish musings of opener "In the Spring" and on to "Northern Waters" with its snatches of pop in the style of early Del Amitri (a band critically dismissed because 90% of their stuff is nothing like their sublime first album), it's clear that Allo Darlin' are drawing from a set of influences different from those inspiring so many current acts on Slumberland Records. The songs here are perfectly pitched, full of spaces where a country hook can creep in, or a folk rock lick can find a place to anchor a chorus. The tunes are uniformly superb, and listeners may be sort of stunned at just how much this band was missed.
"You Don't Think Of Me At All" is gnarly but heartfelt, while the "It felt so good to be alive" refrain in "Tricky Questions" turns the Comet Gain-y song into a near-anthem. A spry guitar figure propels "Historic Times" behind Elizabeth's winsome vocals. The song is sweetly happy and sort of sad in an odd way. It's a mixture of feelings that acts like The Sundays, Everything But the Girl, and Ivy could capture in the past. And at times, like on the wildly catchy, "My Love Will Bring You Home", Allo Darlin' so command this kind of material as to be without peer in its execution right now.
Bright Lights is wonderfully affirming in spots, and resolutely alive in most others. Whether it's heartbreak, aging, or regret, the emotions tackled here are adult ones, and Allo Darlin' pour their hearts into this stuff. I highly recommend this record. It's the sort of thing that can brighten up your whole week, seriously.
Bright Lights by Allo Darlin' is out this week via Slumberland Records in the USA.
[Photo: Jørgen Nordby]