22
On New Starts’ More Break-Up Songs, Darren Hayman weaves a personal mythology of love and loneliness…the results are sometimes humorous, sometimes tear-jerking, and never less than entertaining.
We sometimes take Darren Hayman for granted. Those four great Hefner albums will forever be etched in the memories of lovelorn indie boys and girls of a certain age, while his later work with The French and the subsequent near-continuous flow of high-quality solo records will ensure that his cult status lasts for as long as people have ears and feelings. But, perhaps because of the sheer weight and range of material, it’s sometimes possible to forget where you are with his more recent work, to miss a release or two, or to make the mistake of skipping an album because the concept isn’t exactly up your street.
With his new project – a poppy, rocky four-piece – Hayman seems to have gone back to basics, by which I mean back to the blueprint that made the first two Hefner albums so damn loveable. For one thing, they’re called New Starts – no messing around there – and their first album together is a collection of songs about the end of a relationship. It’s too easy to say that More Break-Up Songs is The Fidelity Wars 2.0, because New Starts and Hefner are very different bands, and because a fifty-something Hayman approaches the subject of heartbreak differently to his twenty-something self.
But still, something incredible happens when Darren Hayman writes about love. More so than practically anyone else in pop, he captures the minutiae of what happens in a relationship, particularly new relationships and, in the case of More Break-Up Songs, those drawing to a close. He recognises that certain situations are universal, but the particular details involved in a break-up – the cause, the effect, the thousand tiny ways a person’s day changes – are specific and unique. He bases his observations on these specificities, and the results are sometimes humorous, sometimes tear-jerking, and never less than entertaining.
Opening track A Little Stone is a jumpy slice of guitar pop that doesn’t sound a million miles away from former Hayman collaborators The Wave Pictures. The electric guitar squalls over the unexpectedly confident pulse of the rhythm section, and Hayman’s knack for pairing a chirpy melody with a self-deprecating or melancholic lyric is on full display. Despite the circumstances, Hayman sounds like he’s ready to meet the world head-on, some credit for which must go to his new band, which features the rhythm section of Tigercats and guitarist Joely Smith of London DIY favourites Fresh. The tone they set on that first song defines much of the album.
The variety comes courtesy of Hayman’s always-surprising lyrical takes on love and loss. Under the Striplights – full of crunchy guitars and gurgling bass – plays on the constant proximity between grimy circumstance and elevated notions of romance, with killer lines like ‘kiss me like I forgot your birthday.’ Tease the Corners comments self-consciously on the uselessness of words amidst Hefner-esque references to ‘our drunk stupid hearts’. What I Specifically Love creates an almost perfect facsimile of new wave, on which Hayman scribbles one of his most potent list-lyrics. It’s like The Cars broke down somewhere in London and never went home.
There are references to domesticity scattered throughout the album, most obviously on Home Becomes a Lantern, but also in the safe spaces of the opening song. A shared home becomes almost interchangeable with a loving relationship; the metaphoric and the actual become the same thing, and it is this that Hayman mourns the loss of so eloquently.
Slow burners like Don’t Need Persuading, with its Pale Blue Eyes-like guitar, tip the album into dusky, autumnal territory. A Place To Be – another song eulogising shared domesticity or just shared space in general – lopes along at mid-pace and gives Smith’s guitar space to twist and wind. Pumpkins gives us the Halloween anthem we didn’t know we needed, and I Think You Need to Say I Love You is a vehicle for Hayman’s voice, which remains as distinctive as ever.
Of course, it goes without saying that the lyrical content throughout is top-notch. Even on the punky, perky pop of I Was Trying to Make You Miss Me, which seems like it’s over almost before it’s begun, Hayman gets at the kernel of some hard truths about love and jealousy in his usual, soul-baring way. The classic guitar sound of the third Velvet Underground album returns for the final song, Let Me Start Again, while Hayman weaves a personal mythology of love and loneliness, a place where regret is tempered by dark wit and the odd bright flash of defiance. It’s typical of his ability to create something meaningful and lasting out of disappointment and turmoil and out of something as ephemeral as a human relationship. For all the characteristic cleverness here, what strikes you is a kind of quiet determination. Remember when that horrible Keep Calm and Carry On slogan was everywhere? Well, if we’d all had Darren Hayman’s lyrics printed on our egg cups and baby-grows, we might all be a bit better off now.
More Break-Up Songs – Out now on Fika Recordings
CD/Vinyl via: http://hefnet.com/
Bandcamp: https://fikarecordings.bandcamp.com/album/more-break-up-songs
Also read:
