Released: 21st February 2020
Rating: ★★★
“It’s so hard to find a song to put on when they’re all about either falling in or falling out, and I just want to stay here in the middle dancing around in the shadows,” declare Peggy Sue in the mantra-like ‘In The Shallows’. What the follow up to 2014’s triumphant ‘Choir of Echoes’ does is capture the very essence of those aforementioned shadows, and make them look almost inviting.
On ‘Vices’, Peggy Sue are taking your everyday clichés on love and heartbreak, and embracing them with open arms. Ruminations over why things ended (‘In Dreams’) are offset by distracting thoughts (‘Remainder Blues’) and make for a sense of reverie throughout ethereal fleeting between the sanguine and the sombre. The London-based duo may have taken a four-year hiatus from writing together to focus on, and find inspiration from, their other musical projects but you would never have guessed by the ease in which the songs flow.
Whether conforming to the conventions of garage rock; slipping into the haziness of shoegaze; or tapping into the jazzier side of their wealthy back catalogue, Peggy Sue have a knack for making a variety of music which allows you to purge all kinds of emotions, and their latest album is an offering that proves the age-old saying that yes: absence does make the heart grow fonder, and sometimes it’s for the best.
Tyler Damara Kelly
