Circa Waves’ hotly anticipated debut comes crashing in, and with irresistible festival-ready choruses it's guitar pop at its finest. It’s nothing new, but who cares when you have a great time listening to it?
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Sometimes, a little reminder about how simple things can be can make everything seem just perfect. In a nutshell, that is what Liverpudlian four-piece Circa Waves’ debut Young Chasers does. Four men, armed with just two guitars, drums, and a bass, nothing else, singing about being young and being free. It’s simple, but boy is it effective.
Just a minute into the opening track on Young Chasers, ‘Get Away’, and you know exactly what Circa Waves are all about. It’s vivacious, it’s catchy, and it’s boyish; “My hands are tied/Tied to you/And I don’t mind” coos frontman Kieran Shudall. ‘T-Shirt Weather’ is the second track and the lead single from the album, and from the off it’s a clear winner. It’s a song built for summer, road trips and festivals; a guitar riff you won’t be able to get out of your head and a chorus you can sing from the top of your lungs are all in check.
The album continues in a similar vein until ‘Deserve This’, a slower track which had to come at some point, symbolising the halfway point of the LP. It’s dreamy and shows a different side to Circa Waves; and it’s nice side, proof that they can do more than just festival anthems. If the succulent riffs of ‘Deserve This’ end the first half of the album, ‘Young Chasers’ kicks off the second with a bang; “Don’t waste my time” declares Shudall, something Young Chasers wouldn’t dare do, Circa Waves making sure each new minute is as exciting as the last.
‘Stuck In My Teeth’ is another three minute indie blast, a festival-ready track with a punchy chorus you can expect to see greeted with open arms in the fields of T In The Park and Reading and Leeds, just two of the festivals the band will be playing this summer, whilst ‘Talking Out Loud’ closes the album in a calmer manner compared to the rest of the album.
What is clear with Young Chasers is that its simplicity is what makes the album great and so catchy, yet in many regards it is what also holds it back. The argument Circa Waves make throughout is that you don’t need anything fancy in your music when you bring a whole load of fun to the table. And that is true, what the band have produced is an indie-pop album fit for sunshine with big songs from start to finish.
Young Chasers is an album that will be compared to the works of The Kooks, The Strokes, and other indie bands from the noughties. It’s not perfect by a long shot; the themes could broaden, the lyrics could mature, but that’s not the point. They sing about being a long way from home and about being teenage boys. It’s forty minutes of fun, of ignoring everything that’s going on around you and whacking out the air guitar. It’s forty minutes of freedom.
Young Chasers was released by Virgin EMI on the 30th March.
