I have never once lain on my back in a field of corn, avec lover, hand in hand, the tall golden stalks distorting the piercing afternoon sunlight, a warm breeze bringing slow life to everything around me, the world beyond unfolding like a cinefilm movie, just out of reach. But it would be lush, that, wouldn’t it. That’s what the track ‘It’s Close Up, Far Away’ from Denmark’s The Kissaway Trail feels like, or at least what we imagine it feels like given that we’ve not experienced it. The Kissaway Trail are all about the good life though, we’re sure of that. They’re about fleeting smiles, beautiful lost moments, hopes, sunlight, friendships, congregation, embraces, the underlying pulse of utter contentment. A band for daydreaming– though not snoozing, there is too much here for attentive ears to feast on.
It is just a very lovely record, segueing from one wispy sphere of dreaminess to the next, it’s that simple, and alongside bands like Cherry Ghost and Band Of Horses they’re holding a flame for times past when man was spoilt by consistently spellbinding offerings from Mercury Rev, Grandaddy, Sparklehorse et al. They’re not afraid to be rousing, and there is much to rally your souls here, but they do it all with cotton wrapping and under a soothing drizzle. Even at its most rattled (and it would certainly scare away no crows) it is lovely.
Opening track, the almost whimsical ‘Forever Turned Out To Be Too Long’ floats between altitudes inhabited by Grandaddy on the one hand, and with the emphatic “HEY!” chants The Polyphonic Spree on the other. ‘La La Song’s excitable storybook momentum meanwhile recalls I’m From Barcelona’s harmonic enthusiasm. ‘In Disguise’ with its wide acoustic tones, stormy strings and arpeggio vocalising reminds of The Decembrists, much the same goes for ‘Tracy’. And the blissful, spotless ‘Smother + Evil = Hurt’ is pure Mercury Rev, perhaps held aloft by The Shins as it tumbles towards its surging close. Only ‘Soul Assassins’ and ‘Sometimes I’m Always Black’ really fall below par, reminding of The Stills and suggesting too small a worldview. Too small when the rest of the album is tugging at your shirt sleeve, begging to elope.