Earlier this year, Circa Waves released Death & Love Pt. 1, a disparaged, clinical reflection on frontman Kieran Shudall’s brush with death and eventual need for life-saving heart surgery. Thoughts of mortality leave an imprint, but the album’s follow-up, its second chapter, is the customary, life-affirming sequel; an oh-so necessary album formed both thematically and musically from survival after staring death in its dimples.
The Waves manifest a lust for life initially with an upswing in danceability, but interestingly, while the infectiousness of Death & Love Pt. 2 is apparent, the album’s ‘onwards and upwards’ thinking is complemented primarily by familiarity. Even the dancier cuts burgeon from a steady Phoenix influence (see Ten Outta Ten and Wave Goodbye) with atmospheric synths and calculated grooves – they’re looking around, learning, and loving life!
Then, other than the occasional Prince motif (1999–Purple Rain era, where Love Me For the Weekend is concerned), joy is formed from the multitudes of rock music that brought the Liverpudlians to the dance on 2015’s Young Chasers. Cherry Bomb’s ode to good life and better friends is Strokes-esque, while a Cribs-like ostinato follows Stick Around, its “darling, you’re so full of life” proclamations, and typified high-end guitars.
Life is worth living, says Lost in the Fire, a prosperity anthem that makes haste like a peppier version of Radiohead’s Jigsaw Falling Into Place – similar vocal frissons too. Circa Waves do have their own knack; Old Balloons is all their own, packing the same weighty, physical punch as the rest of the tracklist, picking up its themes of never taking love for granted despite life’s mood swings with massive changes in dynamics – a briskness on the verse, a thunder on the chorus.
Even if the album is a tad too familiar, even if it borrows from tropes indie/alternative rock has churned for decades, it is at least far more vibrant than most others that do the same. Circa Waves aren’t littering the landfill, instead paving their own way with a lovely response to Pt. 2’s unhappy-go-unlucky predecessor, insured for an anthem. Death & Love Pt. 2 is a photogenic brain dump, packed with necessary offloads, shedding what is left of prior anxiety; a fever pitch in Kieran Shudall caring about his craft, producing the album himself; and most importantly, the completion of a story.
