Album Review Field Music - Flat White Moon

In a departure from the staunchly political content of recent years, Field Music tackle more personal themes for their 11th studio album. ‘Flat White Moon’ bears all the traces of inward reflection that forced isolation provides, while remaining true to the Wearsiders’ core appeal. The shimmering magic of opener ‘Orion From The Street’ sets the tone: propulsive, buoyant beats cut with chopping guitars, immaculately tight and hypnotic rhythms in the true Field Music mould, here tempered by ponderous observations of far constellations and death being “but a dream”. That this is a very English record by a very English band only enhances its introversions. Images of quaint domesticity - tennis courts, caravans, lagers in the garden – mingle with nostalgic odes to the streets of Sunderland and central London, with musical leanings that recall the great trailblazers of nostalgic British pop: the romantic theatricality of Peter Gabriel-era Genesis, the cello-scraping chamber pop of Paul McCartney and the succulent melodies of primary influence XTC. From a band capable of biting social commentaries and intense concept albums about the First World War, this latest, fluffier episode in the Field Music saga is a solid record that does everything you’d ever hope a Field Music album would do.