Albums: We Are Love

The Charlatans are releasing their 14th., studio album "We Are Love" it has been their first album to be recorded at Rockfield since 1997's Tellin' Stories and the album's title track was released as a lead single last July and "Deeper and Deeper"

The album has been focused on the band's effort than collaborators which seems to be fine for the band and the sound across the record, the title track "We Are Love" came easy and it feels the band was comfortable to perform it. The first album in almost a decade, The Charlatans are dealing with the well-documented ghosts and dark places that have been a feature of the their story, they're returned to the same place to work since keyboard genius Rob Collins died in a car collision driving from the studio in 1996. 

The band shared 'hauntology' and 'psychogeography' as talking points whilst recording the album, partly influenced by the choice of going back to Rockfield according to frontman Tim Burgess, who further elaborated on the decision as an idea that what has been lost (or what never was) still affects and often determines the present. As artists get older, there’s bound to be a sense of loss in their work as has been handled brilliantly in recent albums by Suede and The Cure, and We Are Love can be added to this body of work, but The Charlatans channel their grief in a much more positive manner. 

The album opener "Kingdom of Ours" opines that the curtain is coming down, but rather than being a maudlin sentiment, there's a sense of euphoria within the swelling music and the lyrics talk about the small, mundane things that deliver us from pain. The album's first single, the rip-roaring "We Are Love", felt like a return to form after the middling albums Different Days from 2017 and 2015's Modern Nature. Here, though, there's a catchy hook that's eluded the band for way too long, and the double hit of the eponymous track followed by "Many A Day A Heartache" are feel like a band reinvigorated, reenergised and it actually sounds like The Charlatans are enjoying making music again. 

"For The Girls" is next and there's a clearer sense of what the band are trying to achieve on We Are Love. This track sounds like a prime cut from 1999’s Us and Us Only, and here is a band looking forwards whilst acknowledging the persistence of the past. The brilliant "Deeper and Deeper" is a love song for the ages. In the middle of the heartbreak, there's room for finding new love and for having your head in the clouds so much that you’ll never want to come back down. "Out On Our Own" starts with a dreamy bass intro, it’s a song in three parts, but they often intertwine too much where a breath between sections might have been a better idea. 

"Salt Walter" a weird, hypnagogic track that's of interest, "Appetite" is another that doesn’t quite hit in certain way with maybe the mood of the album, which is a shame as it has all of the constituent parts to be a cracker but it just feels flat, and then, the album heading into their final tracks "Glad You Grabbed Me" and  "Now Everything" – the two most heart-on-sleeve tracks on an album filled with looking back. "Now Everything" the final track which is the most sonically ambitious song on We Are Love, if "Glad You Grabbed Me" looked to the past, "Now Everything" is firmly positioned in the present and its funereal pace underplays its sense of positivity, and musically it wanders into psychedelic soundscapes towards the end that could – should – have been much longer. 

 

A welcome return to form from this iconical band and proving they're still worth attention, celebrating their history throught this album and creating formidable and important music in the process to make of this album a must-have. 

 

We Are Love Track List: 

 

1. Kingdom Of Ours

2. We Are Love

3. Many A Day A Heartache

4. For The Girls

5. You Can't Push The River

6. Deeper And Deeper

7. Appetite

8. Salt Water

9. Out On Our Own

10. Glad You Grabbed Me

11. Now Everything