Album Review – This Candle is For You by Spearmint (2023) (WIAIWYA)
After twenty-five years and nine albums, Spearmint still continues to release perfect pop music in a This Candle Is For You tenth album that thrives on simplicity as much as it does upon the natural ease in which they always find glorious melodies within just about every musical subtext.
Floating, or perhaps drifting is a more appropriate word considering the sense of languid within the Spearmint aesthetic, this release gravitates towards a strange lo-fi beauty via two primary nuances.
Initially Tell Me About My Sister, Melody’s Mother’s Jam, The Most Secret Agent in the World, and Three More Songs on the Jukebox claim the musical crevices between jangly indie-pop, sedate twee-pop, and the sophistication of 80’s scouse pop as earworm upon earworm are gradually grafted upon the listener with their signature contrite, ever so slightly melancholy abundance.
In comparison, How I Became the Nutter on the Bus and Older Cats Pt. 1, Flowers on the Bandstand, and Back in the Middle offer the Sandra’s Wedding-style propensity for juxtaposing sophisti-pop addled indie-pop with the sort of genuine vocal perfections that are typical of Paul Heaton at his sweet, plaintive best.
Of course, as always, there will be ‘some’ who will opine that not much has changed since their recent releases…such a ‘some’ never deserved this band anyway!
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