Epic update to the noughties version of Cool Britannia.
Wasn’t that the sound that the post-Blur & Oasis bands hit us with in the early and mid-noughties? The comeback of Britrock from an attitude of intense experience and hearty music-making at a time that had not yet had to mourn the loss of a future. If a band like Courting follows this tradition, at the same time mixes in the disturbances and scene noises of the present and, thirdly, includes a “theater piece” (original sound by singer Sean Murphy O’Neill) in the album, then they can Focus is lost.
And that despite the fact that the quartet from Liverpool goes all out with a few classic rock breakers on their second album after their debut GUITAR MUSIC (2022). But there are also slow-paced passages in the midst of the solid rock drone, a kind of honky tonk and good funk rock nonsense, brass drive elsewhere, a cut up brass sample that becomes a beatmaker (“Emily G”) – a lot Detailed work in the heated day-to-day business, supported by Gary and Ryan Jarman from the Cribs in production.
But all of this doesn’t quite come together. At the beginning Sean Murphy O’Neill laments a past love (“Throw”), a few mental leaps further he finds himself in the pop star chaos (“Flex”) and afterwards he ends up in 2009, the person addressed in the song is memory, her today has a NEW LAST NAME (“America”).