London electronic act Real Lies combine classic English pop-poetic story-telling with the uncanny rainswept atmospheres of auteurs like Claude Young, Drexciya and Richard D James. On their second album, lyricist Kevin Lee Kharas romanticises ecstasy-fuelled teenage joyrides that set the coordinates for two decades of thrill-seeking hedonism. A wild period that resulted in both the group’s euphoric 2015 debut Real Life and the prolonged six-year wait for its follow up.

In places, that euphoria remains – they’ve never sounded higher than on ‘Dream On’ – but generally the mood here is darker, more late-night, club-ready and ruminative. There are songs about losing childhood friends in mysterious circumstances (‘Dolphin Junction’), bandmates (‘Boss Trick’ is a wake for former member Tom Watson), childhood innocence (‘An Oral History Of My First Kiss’) and huge swathes of memory (‘The Carousel’). As the title implies, Lad Ash is a coming-of-age album that draws out the beauty and longing of the young British male experience by reframing it through an elegiac, at times almost gothic, lens.

STAFF COMMENTS

Liam says: Without a doubt one of my releases of the year, Real Lies' sophomore 'Lad Ash' is finally available on vinyl after its digital release earlier this year. Capturing the magic and the melancholia of being in your 20s in 2022, 'Lad Ash's mixture of The Streets and Pet Shop Boys will have you craving and reminiscing those long-lost nights out you never had.

TRACK LISTING

A1 Ethos
A2 Boss Trick
A3 An Oral History Of My First Kiss
A4 Dream On

B1 Late Arcades
B2 Thameslink Tryst
B3 Dolphin Junction
B4 All Good Dogs

C1 Since I
C2 The Carousel
C3 Your Guiding Hand
C4 DiCaprio

D1 You Were In Love
D2 I Wander
D3 Oh Me, Oh My (Nicotine Patch)
D4 Birds