Summer Camp - Welcome To Condale

What does the perfect debut album need to do? Well, there’s the obvious stuff; it needs to keep those with hearts already captured totally enraptured. It needs a smattering, and no more than a smattering, of slightly older songs, and it needs those songs to be blown away by the new ones. Does ‘Welcome To Condale’ bring it? It brings it so hard we don’t need to worry about the converted, they’re not going anywhere.

The best thing a debut album can do, though, is convince the unconvinced. You want to see that ‘whoa, this is, actually, totally amazing” realisation shining in their widening eyes. You want to see a foot start tapping, a dance routine break out, the whole street instinctively join in, a marching band, some parade floats and, and - no, probably gone too far. But you definitely want to see that look in their eyes - and maybe the marching band.

So, can Welcome To Condale bring that too? From the opening blast of glorious single ‘Better Of Without You’, there’s never a flicker of doubt. The song barrels along, gathers momentum throughout and lyrically sets the tone for the whole album - there ain’t any straightforward tales of love’s young dream here. Don’t you just love the chutzpah of opening an album with your best song to date too? “Yeah, here’s this one, it’s great, the rest are better“. That confidence speaks volumes about what Summer Camp are trying to achieve here. Think when Blur broke free from the shackles of indiepop and took on the world with Parklife. Think banishing inhibitions and hang-ups, think making sure you give it absolutely everything.

How do they do it? Follow a trusty maxim: “If you’re going to do something, do it properly. Then double it”. So if you’re going to populate your songs with intricately observed characters then don‘t hold back. Build these people a town, call it Condale, locate it in LA. Avoid the obvious. Make it more than jocks, nerds and proms. Daub it in the colours of a Tim Burton world where the smiles last just a second too long and weary eyes betray soul-destroying surburban ennui. Detail the lonely decline of Mayor Louis Sley in ‘Nobody Knows You’. Paint vivid pictures of awkward teen encounters and rejection in ‘Last American Virgin’.

But, and here’s the bit they get so right; this can’t be detached or judgemental observation. We need to believe in these people and we need to feel the spirit of Jeremy Warmsley and Elizabeth Sankey bursting out of the songs. It’s never a problem; the album is awash in gentle humanity, in a comprehension of fallibility and redemption and, most importantly, a genuine affection for the characters. Amidst barbed, skew-whiff synth and distortion happy guitar - which demonstrates a deft step forward from the very earliest records - we see as much of the band as we do any of the Condale protagonists. Hear the track ‘Summer Camp’ and let yourself swoon to the beautiful “I was searching for, I was hurting for, Someone just like you, Now I found you“. It works within the album and it works, wonderfully, on its own. And, 18 months or so after first hearing the “I will never forget, The heartache of your sighs” line from ‘Ghost Train’ it still sounds exquisitely forlorn.

This is the moment Summer Camp prove they’re so much more than a cute band with an 80s film obsession. This is the moment they realise greater ambitions. Welcome To Condale is big, bold, and ceaselessly inventive. Full of wit and empathy, full of smarts and hearts. It’s a magnificent pop record, and, yes, it’s pretty much the perfect debut. Bring on the parade floats.