Post-New Wave Outfit Circa Waves Continue Prolific Streak with ‘Death & Love Pt. 1’ (ALBUM REVIEW)

Photo credit: Polocho

With six albums out in the span of just over a decade, Liverpool’s post-New Wave acolytes Circa Waves are clearly on a prolific streak. Their last effort, 2023’s Never Going Under, was still finding new fans across the globe as they prepped to release Death & Love Pt. 1.

Part of the reason for the immediacy around this second album deals with singer/guitarist Kieran Shudall’s 2023 health scare. Doctors discovered that the main artery in his heart was severely blocked, so instead of packing up for a tour to celebrate his band’s new record, he was on an operating table and then sent home to navigate a slew of medications prescribed to keep him alive.  

“I needed this record to process what I went through. A letter to tell myself I would stick around,” Shudall explains. “Most of all, I wanted to make a record for me, with music I love and hopefully music to make kids in their bedroom pick up a guitar and believe they can take on the fucking world.” 

And that music clearly took inspiration from a slew of influences, from Joy Division and Pavement to The Strokes and Arctic Monkeys.

You can also sense an urgency in these songs to express a slew of conflicting emotions clearly exacerbated by a near-death experience and summed up succinctly with the album title. The opening track, the explosive “American Dream” is a solid indication that, despite the inspiration for this particular album, it’s not going to be crammed with maudlin introspection. That infectious energy is carried through on the dance-punk vibe of “Like You Did Before” and the incredible album closer “Bad Guys Always Win.”  Songs like “Le Bateau” find Shudall looking back fondly on his youth, while “Hold It Steady,” one of the rare slower moments on the record, sees him reaffirming that there is still a lot of life left to live (“Wait, I’m not ready to sink beneath the waves, take my hand hold it steady”).

The album’s title implies that we can expect more music in a similar vein to come soon. In the meantime, the band is preparing for a February UK tour before heading out on a spring trek across the US. A near-death experience has clearly done little to slow down the band, which was already working at an impressive clip even before the health scare.

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