Timing is everything. We all know that. Never more true than in the musical world. Stories abound of records which only caught the public consciousness on the second, third or even fourth release. The Velvet Underground & Nico arguably one of the most influential albums of all time, barely made the top 200 the first time it dropped; Radiohead’s eventual breakout single ‘Creep’ was deemed too depressing for mainstream radio play at first, and Lana Del Rey’s Born to Die did just that in the USA. So CA in LA extending and reissuing their debut album is the sign of a smart band understanding that sometimes not everything is within their control.
But this deluxe edition of Hindsight does deserve the wider and perhaps hard-won audience that I’m sure it will eventually get, and for many reasons. Perhaps most importantly, because the songs here are great: a shimmering, succulent indie sound that blends pop’s easy addictiveness with rock’s more cleverly sculpted, driven structures. Groove meets grace!
Bravely, the album opens with ’20/20’s drifting ambience and opaque textures before dropping into the more driven yet no less gorgeous ‘H’, a song of subtle dynamics, smooth highs and serene lows and oh boy, those vocals, crystalline, seductive and scintillating.
And if songs such as ‘Spring Cleaning’ show that CA in LA understand the power of allowing a song breathing space, that it can be full of atmosphere and still groove like a badass, ‘Body Study’ shows us that when they put the foot on the gas, we feel it, and then there are songs like ‘Erase You’ which wander between lovely lulls and anthemic highs and do so effortlessly.
Hindsight is a masterclass in both songwriting and composition, creating the required sonic moods by mixing rock energy with indie understatement, pop-aware contagion, and cinematic soundscaping; above it all, vocals evolve through crescendo and whisper and warmth and emotion as required. This album deserves a big audience, and you, dear listener, can start that process right now. Buy it. Buy it. Buy it!
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