Pugwash - Silverlake

Eleven top tunes from Thomas Walsh! FFO The Beach Boys, ELO, McCartney and grown-up tuneful pop!

Regular readers of this here humble blog will know that one thing I particularly like is a song that's genuinely melodically memorable. After all there are lots of records that are sonically pleasing and great enough to listen to, but even after several listens you're hard pushed to actually remember the tunes. That's what makes this latest album from Pugwash such a delight. All eleven of its tracks have such soaring pop melodies, each one strong enough to warrant releasing as a single.

I'm saddened to say I've not had the fortune of stumbling across Pugwash before as this is actually their seventh LP, the band having formed 20 years ago. The man behind the melodies is Thomas Walsh, resident of Drimnagh, South Dublin. For this record he's joined by Jason Falkner of Jellyfish fame. Incredibly Walsh wrote all eleven songs on Silverlake within a week, and recorded them with Falkner producing at the latter's LA studio. If a record as strong as Silverlake doesn't bring Walsh to wider recognition it's difficult to think what would.

At various times recalling and rivalling the pop nouse of Brian Wilson, Jeff Lynne, Paul McCartney and Andy Partridge, the cumulative effect of so many earworms makes this one of the best feelgood albums of the year, or any year for that matter! From the opening summery pop of 'The Perfect Summer' onwards, Silverlake is intelligent, tuneful, heartfelt and wrapped in lush production. Very highly recommended!

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