As a taste of Sean MacLeod’s 5th album, That’s When the Earth Becomes a Star, “Light Up the Sun” is a perfect track to lead the way. Not only a brilliant place to start if this is your first taste of his music, but also a great reminder of what makes his music so great for those who have been following the story.
There have always been plenty of sixties echoes found in his music, many of which seem to come down to us through a Brit-Pop filter, or perhaps more reminiscent of that more interesting pre-Brit-Pop scene, either way, the shimmer of a certain strand of musical history is palpable. “Light Up the Sun” certainly tips its hat to the likes of The Kinks, but also feels perfectly at home in the modern age. I would say that the fact that it references the past and the present so readily, so interchangably, so much so that you feel that it is a song that you are already familiar with, indicates a classic in the making. Only time will tell.
What isn’t in question is that, as a taste of Sean MacLeod’s masterful sound and an insight into the new album (which dropped yesterday), this is a great song, one that ebbs and flows between elegant understatement and a slightly more energized, though no less sonically eloquent, flow.
I can’t imagine many listening to this and then not immediately purchasing the album, and that, in a nutshell, is the point of a single. Job done. Job done brilliantly.
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