Lightspeed Champion - Life is Sweet! Nice To Meet You

Whatever one says about Test Icicles, they were unarguably in a different time zone to every other indie band of the time. A joke, yes. Diabolical at times. A sham. But they were different. The consensus around former third of the band, Dev Hynes - now Lightspeed Champion or even Blood Orange - is that he’s a world apart from his early musical days. Second album ‘Life is Sweet! Nice To Meet You’ takes the wise charm of debut ‘Falling Off The Lavender Bridge’ and revels in its added maturity and experience.

For the most part, this follow-up acts as some kind of operatic, guitar-centric concept piece, with Hynes travelling as far from normality as he can, his ‘baby’ in tow. It sees the singer/songwriter encounter the Far East, the Deep South and elsewhere, anywhere but Britain.

Hynes takes on the life and voice of the protagonist of ‘Madame Van Damme’, a depressed prostitute seeking refuge in Sao Paulo, demeaned to the point of repeating ‘kill me, baby won’t you kill me’. Elsewhere he rings a more potent, personal note. Whether he’s personally referring to his ‘sweetheart’ in ‘Smooth Day (At The Library)’ and his frustration at being told ‘you don’t want to see me’ is another question. Romance - or the lack of it - does seem to roll from Hynes’ tongue with ease on this record; opener ‘Dead Head Blues’ declares ‘I know you’re happy, and that’s lovely, but it won’t keep me complete’. It’s a twisted - and note, very organised - tale of tormented love.

This is what makes ‘Life Is Sweet’ a clear progression from 2008’s debut. Where his last was patchy and ridden with loose inexperience, Lightspeed Champion’s latest is a balanced, well-thought-out work of art. There are no unfinished touches, no rough edges. Its structure is reminiscent of Sufjan Stevens’ ‘an-interlude-here-a-proper-ballad-there’ way of working - it doesn’t quite reach the heights of, say, ‘Illinoise’, but you can draw direct parallels between the two. And while there isn’t a striking stand-out song (it could be ‘Marlene’, at a push), the record works as musical sitcom, with Hynes the showman, the central character - one never shy to admit his feelings.

Perhaps this former pink guitar-slaying songwriter is closer to writing a masterpiece than most; ‘Life Is Sweet’ isn’t it - it lacks robustness, a cohesive feel, a blow-your-socks-off centrepiece. But it shows ambition like no joke band ever could, and pushes Dev Hynes closer to the status of ‘brilliant songwriter’.