As The Wrong Man heads into more atmospheric and deliciously darker territory with their third single, something of the 80s echoes through the song’s mellifluous weaves. And if I use terms like ‘soft rock,’ ‘easy listening,’ or even ‘yacht rock,’ it is purely complimentary, and I use them aware that time has erased the earlier stigma of such labels. Now they stand for music that is polished and poised, accessible yet not obvious, and commercially valuable without playing any of the usual chart games. In musical terms, this is not a band screaming like me, like me, like me; it is merely music that is effortlessly likeable. And that is the art of making such music.
It is also music woven as much from atmosphere as instrumentation, from mood as much as melody, and as ‘Return to Silence’ slowly falls into place, it emerges as a delicate array of unfussy beats and slick guitars, shimmering synth riffs and incidental music, bass lines that glue everything together, and a vocal as much whispered as sung.
It is the perfect sonic backdrop for a song about finding those quiet, intimate moments in a mad world, those oases of refuge where everything is dialled down and the moment, and the person you are with, are all that matters.
And the greatest thing about this sensuous and seductive sound is that it is brilliantly self-referencing, that it could actually be the music playing in the distance as such scenarios play out.
Clever. Very clever indeed.
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