Summer Camp, XOYO, London

It goes without saying that all the best songs are love songs. No, forget that, that’s not true at all. Most of the worst songs are love songs. Let´s start again.
It goes without saying that all the best songs are heart songs: Broken heart songs, fixed heart songs, messing up, ‘fessing up, God-damn-this-stupid-heart songs. Summer Camp, it also goes without saying, are all about the heart songs. Better than that, and the thing that makes them just a little bit special, is that these heart songs are cocooned in scuffed Spector echoes, in scratchy fizzle, in lo-fi hazy synth wonk, in guitar racket bash. That they’ve been described as twee is almost laughable. Look past the faded Polaroid 70s imagery, beyond the 80s movie affection and you´ll find a fervent imagination skewing pop notions skywards, forwards and every other directionwards (yes, that’s so a word).

That imagination is starting to pay dividends. This show, set amongst the hilariously faux dive bar stylings of XOYO, is a sell-out and you can tell it’s a big deal: Summer Camp girl Elizabeth Sankey does most of the talking and is impressively dressed, dressed to impress. Summer Camp boy Jeremy Warmsley says not so much but the glasses are off, the hair’s ruffled, there are no wolves on his jumper. No wolves. They mean business and we don’t stand a chance. Hell, we don’t even put up a fight.

‘Ghost Train’, their most straightforwardly pretty single, is still a twisty oddpop curio; the weirdly jaunty pace gently choo-choos along, delicate, slightly unnerving but ever so enticing. And that line, that desolate and lonely ‘I will never forget, the heartache of your sighs’ line? It slays us. It could save flinty, jaded souls. That´s the heart in these songs right slap-bang there, captured in beautifully aware fragments.

‘Ghost Train’ should steal the show, would steal most shows, but even after just a handful of releases the setlist is already star-studded. ‘Veronica Sawyer´ could be the Summer Camp blueprint. The detached, jerky rhythm a perfect fit for the observational displacement. The confident strut, self belief and holler of ‘I got so much more than this’ offsetting any nagging doubt that maybe you kinda want to fit in with the cool kids, y’know, just a tiny bit. And c’mon, it references Heathers and Teenwolf and doesn’t get suffocated or distracted by either. Where can you go from there? ‘Round The Moon’ I guess. The most seemingly hopeful of their songs, the one where JW takes lead vocals and stamps out a euphoric faith in the power of those nights when you dance and dance, never wanting to stop. When you feel inseparable, unbeatable. Yeah, OK, there’s a lurking fear that when the night’s over, when the music stops, the connection fades, but dance and dance round and round and those thoughts are lost in the dizzying moment.

We’re what? We’re when? We’re at the last song of the night? Ah shucks, but it’s all good because it’s ‘I Want You’, the new one that makes us think ‘crikey, did they just say ‘I’d wrap my arms around you and snap every bone in your back’? The one that’s got a creeping something of The Cure about it. The one with the sinister repetition, mounting gloom and increasing pressure. Oh yeah, we love this one. It gets a dedication from ES, ‘This one’s for the haters.’ Maybe it’s tongue-in-cheek, maybe there are no haters, but you do hear mutterings. You hear complaints that it’s been too easy for Summer Camp, that it’s all been about having contacts, that there’s a lack of sincerity. The haters are missing the point. Scratch that, the haters don’t have a point. There’s no artifice and no affectation here, you can’t fake what’s on the stage tonight. Heart songs can only come from the heart, heart songs win our hearts. It goes without saying Summer Camp have the best songs.