No.1 Son

Husbands (Radio Edit)

‘Husbands’ is named after the 1970 John Cassavetes film. The album takes the big music out of its pagan places and into the suburbs, evoking feelings of existential disquiet. It is carefully sequenced; cohesive and immersive; twelve tracks that build in form and content to evoke the widescreen indie LPs of the late nineties.

Produced by Jamie Savage and recorded at The Delgado’s legendary Chem 19 studios, 'Husbands' is a richly melodic fever dream lit up by a subversive intelligence working within its lyrics. The album’s twelve songs are Trojan horses smuggling in feelings of disaffection and disappointment.

‘Nightlights’ and ‘Seven Years’ suspect that the weight of responsibility may be too much to bear, however 'Clucky’, ‘A Disaffection’ and ‘Various Witches’ refuse to give in to despair. ‘Husbands’ is an album that recognises that the blues of the verses must give way to the gospel of the choruses. An old trick, granted, but when the melodies are this good it would be churlish to complain. Fans of imperial phase REM and Elbow at their most anthemic will find much to love. Those interested in the Scottish literary scene will be intrigued to know that Booker Prize winning author James Kelman kindly gave the band his blessing to incorporate lines from his short story ‘If It is Your Life’ into the track ‘Various Witches’.

'Husbands' is an album without bombast or bluster. The big choruses are earned; underwritten by the intellectual rigour of lyrics that are allusive and elliptical, yet able to evoke the specific feeling of suburban ennui. Husbands is an album of Rorschach blots; suffused with the guilt of being comfortable, yet still longing for something more. The title track explores the anxiety of influence. The song is one room of a ghostly hotel where spirits wander the corridors, a purgatory of the self; a warning of the consequence of putting your life in the hands of a rock n roll band.

Pale Fire make pop music for those people who feel pressure to put away childish things. Their second album is a meditation on the passing of time and the way that it can fray the ties that bind: friendship, love and community. Their music reckons with unfashionable subject matter: the demands of adulthood. ‘Husbands’ is a word traditionally weighted with responsibility and expectation; indeed the band’s existence itself is an act of protest: six school friends exploring how to navigate and exist in a world that demands the sacrifice of your essential self.

Pale Fire

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