THE RED RUM CLUB
Western Approaches
(Modern Sky)
Why the long face?
May 1985, a horse walks into a pub and upends a 6-year-olds understanding of how the world works, etching the words ‘Red Rum’ deep into their subconscious in the process. It’s the kind of memory that still feels like it should have been a dream, holding that brain halting absurdity that you need to snap someone out of hysteria.
I’m fashionably late to Red Rum Club, and whilst they’ve no equine connection, I’m all to happy to jump onto their bandwagon. This is music that smells like sunshine and cuts through the numbing effects of SSRI’s to fill your chest with unadulterated happiness, life affirming and utterly discombobulating in the very best of ways.
Western Approaches is to my ears a rare treasure in the form of an album that from start to end is a joy to listen to. Yes, there are influences echoing through some tracks so loudly that I’ve had to make a list of albums to listen to again after decades. Yet, those echoes ring out more in a sense of celebration than a feeling that there has been any lack of initiative. I cannot, hard as I have tried - find a fault in the album, that it’s making me re-evaluate my beliefs surrounding the use of trumpets is nothing short of extraordinary.
Lacking entirely in ‘filler’ the album bounces joyously from track to track before fading out leaving you wishing for a return of the hidden track, or some kind of magical ‘album-encore’.
If you haven’t got time for the full album right now, then track 4 Afternoon is a panacea for the feeling of impending doom that comes with being alive in 2024.
