When Son Mieux released their first single “Easy” in 2015, a dozen children planted a tree in the video. The film adapted a gritty Super 8 aesthetic, the song was based on the childlike sound of cheap 80s synths. Twelve years later, the children have grown up and the tree is blooming magnificently: high gloss everywhere on 24 HOURS, the Dutch band’s third album, from the opulent, spartan video for the lead single “Dark Before The Dawn” to the sound in which brass and string arrangements are layered in ever-changing layers, the piano sets off on dramatic excursions and the saxophone explores the horizon.
What hasn’t changed: The seven-member formation masters epic melodies that only know the expansive gesture – but now the sound keeps pace, rises to epic size, knows no limits, no too much is ever too much. This sound takes no prisoners, regardless of whether they’re called E Street Band or Alphaville: Yes, pathos is the currency here, suffering from runaway inflation.
“Wide awake” is singer Camiel Meiresonne in “Free For Another Day,” but also “ready to brake,” and in “Six Strings,” he lets clouds roll by, and the title song celebrates the fact that each new day comes without a price tag. At a time when bedroom pop can climb to the top of the charts and the pale glitter of Taylor Swift’s “The Fate Of Ophelia” is criticized as pompous, Son Mieux build walls of sound from which pathos trickles down in thick streams. You don’t have to love it, you can even hate it – but you can’t care less about 24 HOURS.
