[indie-pop, synth-pop] (2021) Hayden Thorpe - Moondust for My Diamond [FLAC] [DarkAngie]

(2021) Hayden Thorpe - Moondust for My Diamond

Review:
The new album by former Wild Beasts co-frontman Hayden Thorpe is a smooth, sensuous record that explores many of the sounds of his previous band’s 2014 album Present Tense. While Thorpe’s 2019 solo debut, Diviner, was primarily built around piano, Moondust for My Diamond brings synths and drum machines to the fore, luxuriating in its luscious synth-pop palette. As ever, Thorpe’s voice is unashamedly intimate, breathy and purring, while his lyrics venture boldly into questions of the self and the other, the wonder of nature, and humankind’s place in the universe. He commits to an open-hearted approach that yields some wonderful results. The opening run of songs is particularly strong. “Material World” floats in on a dreamy whorlof glassy synth arpeggios, then picks up its stride with crunchy drum hits and funky electric guitar, as Thorpe muses on the creative process: “It’s only real if I make it / So I make it unreal.” Single “The Universe Is Always Right” has the album’s most strident vocal melody, which rides atop bouncy synth bass and shimmering guitars. “No Such Thing” taps into the brooding energy of Wild Beasts’ “Daughters,” ratcheting up the tension and unfurling some of the most gripping bass and drum sounds on the whole record. This dark thread also runs through “Parallel Kingdom,” counterbalanced by chorused guitars and airy synth melodies. The guitar strums and snare sounds of highlight “Golden Ratio” are as light and pillowy as clouds, through which plaintive woodwinds weave like songbirds. The spacious, guitar-based “Supersensual” offers a welcome breather at the heart of the tracklist, before the second half sees individual songs becoming less dynamic and distinguishable. “Hotel November Tango” musters a satisfying atmosphere but doesn’t develop across its runtime, and “Rational Heartache” foregrounds pop-leaning bass and drum sounds that feel like they’ve been beamed in from another record. Instrumental “Spherical Time II,” swathed in lo-fi hiss, revisits one of Diviner’s spacier moments, and seems to signal that the album may be drawing to a welcome close. But then we get two further tracks, “Suspended Animation” and “Runaway World,” neither of which offer much that hasn’t already been presented more successfully on the preceding songs.Given the generosity of Thorpe’s approach, and the tendency for his songwriting to settle into an easy-going, melodious, mid-tempo sway, Moondust For My Diamond does end up feeling like it’s a few songs too long, especially compared to Diviner’s succinct, 10 song track list. Nevertheless, it’s a predominantly radiant synth-pop record that offers receptive souls some much-needed uplift.

Track Listing:
1.Material World 03:58
2.The Universe Is Always Right 04:04
3.No Such Thing 03:45
4.Parallel Kingdom 03:28
5.Golden Ratio 04:27
6.Metafeeling 04:21
7.Supersensual 03:10
8.Hotel November Tango 04:07
9.Rational Heartache 03:49
10.Spherical Time II 02:35
11.Suspended Animation 03:21
12.Runaway World 03:20


Media Report:
Genre: indie-pop, synth-pop
Country: UK
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits