'Castle of Dreams’ from Progress Junction by Sneaky Feelings
‘Antlers’ from The Deep Set by The Bats
If there were any themes to this advent series (there aren’t) then one of them might be that of (white) men reconnecting with the medium of recorded music in their middle age. I make this observation in an entirely non-pejorative manner, incidentally. We carry our own judgements based on our personal contexts and in this instance I simply make the observation under the influence of caffeine and so inevitably immediately discard it with a somewhat gleeful flick of the wrist. A frisbee flip of passing thought, if you will.
All of which is a sneaky way of telling you that a new record by Sneaky Feelings appeared in 2017 after a gap of nigh on 30 years. Was it worth the wait? Well yes hell yes, although naturally no-one has been waiting in a vacuum all this time least of all me or Matthew Bannister who has made numerous records under his own name and others in the interim, all of which are very fine in their own ways (even/especially when he recorded his cover of The Beatles Revolver album in its entirety). All twelve cuts on Progress Junction are more than worthy of an investment of your time, but if pressed for time (as I know we all say we are in these troubling times) then ‘Castle of Dreams’ is assuredly Sneaky Feelings encapsulated in a smidgeon over four minutes. An exquisite little Pop construction, ‘Castle of Dreams’ starts off in a mood of plucking and strumming, meandering down an autumnal path at gentle pace before slipping down its own magical rabbit hole of taughtly wired psychedelia. It is the kind of record I remember Stars Of Heaven making in the opposite hemisphere at around the time of Sneaky Feelings first album, and there are few compliments I could lay at their feet which are more valuable.
Now if I remember rightly I am sure that I would have been picking up Sneaky Feelings' Waiting For Touchdown set at much the same time as I was listening to Daddy’s Highway by The Bats. Heady times indeed. But if Sneaky feelings went decidedly silent in the thirty years leading up to Progress Junction then The Bats released a steady stream of records, each of which sounded comfortingly familiar and tremblingly disconcerting. The Deep Set set of 2017 then was hardly likely to disrupt the sequence and naturally it delivered on the expectation of a Bats record sounding exactly as we would have wanted a Bats record to sound. Few groups have ever made such a instantly recognisable noise as The Bats. Robert Scott’s vocal is of course a key element in this but more valuable I think is the way in which the group craft a sound which manages to remain just ever so artfully out of kilter and off-centre. There is a peculiarly alluring oscillation to The Bats that to these ears sounds just about the loveliest thing possible. It’s certainly there in ‘Antlers’, a song that sees The Bats in their more up-tempo gear, setting piercing icicles of guitars against a summer meadow of bass and drums that roll over and kiss the moon. Mystical and with an earthy folk quality akin to that of Jasmine Minks’ ‘Cold Heart’, ‘Antlers’ cast an eye backwards and forwards, up and down, all the while spiralling on itself in a dance of regret and certainty.