Close Lobsters were one of the indie jangly bands that featured on NME’s C86 cassette, released a couple of classic albums in the late 80s (Foxheads Stalk This Land and Headache Rhetoric) and then gave up as the world pulled on the plaid and went grunge. They only broke their musical fast of 23 years when they played together again in 2012 but a listen to the six-minute ‘Now Time’ takes you back to that psychedelic janglepop sound of the late ‘80s, as the guitars change gear from ‘purr’ to ‘roar’ and the song starts soaring, like some indie-club anthem from 1989.
Meanwhile, ‘New York City in Space’ is a super-jangly hymn to their spiritual homeland, complete with sweet melodies, nostalgic mentions of CBGBs and the Bowery, typically obscure lyrics (“thinking of the space that lies between Elvis and us”), and arrangements as big and bold as the “canyons of NYC” that they’re singing about. What is there to smile about? asked the Close Lobsters in 1988; in 2014, the answer is: the return of the Close Lobsters.
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