Pale Fountains – These are the Things

While Pale Fountains’ debut album Pacific Street is rightly remembered as a classic – at least by the minority of people who ever heard it in the first place – the 1985 follow-up From Across the Kitchen Table met with considerably less approval, even from their own fans. And for the most part I agree with that less-favourable assessment. It’s a little too ambitious for its own good, too heavily orchestrated, too verbose. It just comes across as self-indulgent, in sharp contrast to the gentle, sweeping pop of its predecessor. So I don’t listen to it much.

This track is an exception. It's much more of a throwback to Pacific Street I think, with its jangly guitars and rousing, vaguely anthemic chorus. It’s also lyrically a lot simpler than most of the rest of the album - a perfect illustration of the cliché “less is more”. Unfortunately, little of what I heard of Michael Head's post-Fountains work seemed to continue in this vein.