London electronic act Real Lies combine classic English pop-poetic story-telling with the uncanny rainswept atmospheres of auteurs like Claude Young, Drexciya and Richard D James. On their second album, lyricist Kevin Lee Kharas romanticises ecstasy-fuelled teenage joyrides that set the coordinates for two decades of thrill-seeking hedonism. A wild period that resulted in both the group’s euphoric 2015 debut Real Life and the prolonged six-year wait for its follow up.
In places, that euphoria remains – they’ve never sounded higher than on ‘Dream On’ – but generally the mood here is darker, more late-night, club-ready and ruminative. There are songs about losing childhood friends in mysterious circumstances (‘Dolphin Junction’), bandmates (‘Boss Trick’ is a wake for former member Tom Watson), childhood innocence (‘An Oral History Of My First Kiss’) and huge swathes of memory (‘The Carousel’). As the title implies, Lad Ash is a coming-of-age album that draws out the beauty and longing of the young British male experience by reframing it through an elegiac, at times almost gothic, lens.
EthosBoss TrickAn Oral History Of My First KissDream OnLate ArcadesThameslink TrystDolphin JunctionAll Good DogsSince IThe CarouselYour Guiding HandDiCaprioYou Were In LoveI WanderOh Me, Oh My (Nicotine Patch)Birds
