Don't make the same mistake I made. This band is not The Sleepyheads. There are a couple of those. No this is Sleepyhead. They're a band who formed in Boston about twenty years and are as good an example as you can get of what a close knit indie band do when they're old enough to realise that this is what they'll be doing from now on. Making heartwarming records for themselves and their devoted fanbase every few years. It's all rather lovely.
I wondered and worried on the first few songs of their latest New Alchemy, whether this was going to tip over into cloying and slightly sickly territory. I shouldn't have doubted them. They know exactly what they're doing. These are powered by strident and chiming guitars. Vocals which all three key Sleepyhead members seem to alternate like the Twee, vaguely Countrified Peter, Paul & Mary. You may want to go 'ahh' occasionally. But only when you put a Teenage Fanclub record on. It has to happen once in a while.
The good songs mount up. The record plays on. This is not an essential one. Except for devotees of the band. I'm not a devotee of Sleepyhead. This is the first of their albums that has come my way. But it says more than enough to make me realise that their back catalogue would be well worth checking out.
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