I'll Light Your Way Back: A Brief Review Of The New Album From The Catenary Wires (Amelia Fletcher Of Heavenly)

The new album from The Catenary Wires, Til The Morning, is yet another in a long string of superb releases from Amelia Fletcher and Rob Pursey. The record, out this Friday via Tapete Records, is full of bright and catchy indie-pop. The shorter version of this review is that fans of Fletcher's and Pursey's work in Heavenly should obviously love this one as much as I do.

Fletcher and Pursey take turns on lead vocals here, with Fletcher's "Back on Hastings Pier" and Pursey's "Dark Brown Eyes" both being lyrical, folk-y numbers that charm with an easy insistence. However, at their best, the duo work in tandem, and in such a way that the resulting material, like "Sixteen Again", sounds as classic and timeless as the tunes the pair made decades ago in Heavenly, for example. Elsewhere, some of this, like "Til The Morning" and the gently-soaring "I'll Light Your Way Home", sees The Catenary Wires take some chances, offering up music that's more direct than even the kind of material that the two main players here offered up in Marine Research, for instance, years ago. And while there's lots here on Til The Morning that will please fans of that band, or Heavenly, or Talulah Gosh, there's loads more, like the brooding "Hollywood", where the material moves into territory that at least feels a tiny bit new for Amelia Fletcher and Rob Pursey. These are not huge changes in their approach, mind you, but they are significant, enough so that the tunes here feel richer and more affecting than perhaps some of the Heavenly stuff, obviously. And that mix of the serious and the simple is what makes Til The Morning by The Catenary Wires such a fine album.

Til The Morning is out on Friday via Tapete Records.

More details on The Catenary Wires via the band's official Facebook page, or their official website.

[Photo: Alison Wonderland]