Whilst we anticipate the complex, whimsical and engagingly camp Dev Hynes, aka Lightspeed Champion to undergo as many time signature shifts and personality changes as the celebrated BBC One Timelord, it seems likely that the one constant in his constantly evolving solo-life will be a prodigious knack with a melody and a capacity for exuberance seldom seen outside of circus rings and bouncy-castles. So if you enjoyed the delicate and understated country drawl of his charming debut, ‘Falling Off the Lavender Bridge’, then tough titties, as Dev’s latest incarnation sees him grab the glitter-ball and the footlights for a stirring and joyously melodramatic rifle through the drawers of swoonsome chamber-pop. The lush strings, the retro finger-snaps, the lightly skipping beats of ‘I Don’t Want To Wake Up Alone’ and ‘Madame Van Damme’ recall the idle teenage fancies of a young Phil Spector whilst the giddy baroque of ‘Etude Op.3’ and ‘The Big Guns of Highsmith’ recall the soft, velvet crush of a life spent in bookstores and boudoirs. Within every departure there is a degree of continuation, even if it the turning of a corner of the opening of another door and the shifts here are sensitive rather than seismic.
‘Life Is Sweet! Nice To Meet You!’ is a menagerie of sorts, a scrummy, frothy cocktail of classical pianos, woodwind riffs, stomping feet, plucked violins, xylophones, ukuleles, slutty clothes and sarongs fleshed out with some of the most outrageous lyrical flights this side of Pulp’s ‘Acrylic Afternoons’. It’s a bit random from time to time and the darkly humorous take on misery has a tendency to exhaust rather than inspire, but it makes for a lively addition to the list of extraordinary gentlemen crooning and swooning around at Domino Records. It’s as savvy and grandiose as Wild Beasts, as sharp as Eugene McGuiness and as dark and as stirring as The Last Shadow Puppets; a successful transformation all round.
Life Is Sweet! Nice To Meet You! Indeed.