Label: Missing Piece Records / Communion
Released: 25th February 2022
In the year 2022, an album written on a steady diet of ABBA and packed full of 70s soft rock influences just shouldn’t work. That’s not us being snobby, mind. It’s just a fact. Here, it’s easy to love things that shouldn’t really work. On ‘Backhand Deals’, Welsh rockers Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard skip happily down the thin line between loving homage and cheesy pastiche and (mostly) stay on the right side.
Kicking off with the upbeat, ass-kicking and zippy ‘New Age Millennial Music’ and the cheery ‘Good Day’ – any song with a chorus packed with plenty of ‘hey, heys’ should be celebrated – the album is front loaded with good times. While it can feel a bit like having too much sugar at points, it leaves one hell of a nice taste in your mouth (and ears) afterwards. ‘Faking A Living’ in particular, despite a title that feels like an open goal to music critics, nails the good time vibe that run through the band like a stick of Big Welsh Rock.
It’s a lesson in classic timeless indie songwriting at points, impeccably produced and pretty irresistible at its best. There’s a Britpoppy zip and bounce at points to ‘Backhand Deals’, though that could just be because many of those bands were also rooting through the same bargain bins in HMV. And though the memorable tunes do perhaps begin to finally tail off by the end, there’s enough to make it a party you will want to return to.
