Loved Ones – Without Face

“I’m ageing, and starting to think about death in an overly dramatic kind of way”, Loves Ones’ lead singer Nik Glover says. The Liverpool quartet recently released their second album, ‘Harness’, a step forward from the lo-fi rock of debut album ‘The Merry Monarch’ into a more diverse and eclectic sphere. After spending time working on soundtracks, it proves they can still put together a sweet pop song, even moving within different parameters, so then why the sense of morbidity on their latest single ‘Without Face’? On the surface, it’s a fluttering, skittering piece of alt-pop, with Nik’s falsetto gliding over the top, a bit like a less bombastic moment from M83 or a more contemporary version of St Etienne’s glimmering electro-pop. But then, it’s also about Nik’s fear of heart attacks, brought about when his dad had a bypass while he was in college. There’s a silver lining to all of this though. “I can almost appreciate your side of it”, Nik sings, his fear bringing him closer to an understanding of his father’s condition, and that they have more in common than perhaps he once thought. So on the surface, ‘Without Face’ might well be about death and the transient nature of life. But Loved Ones don’t wallow in morbidity. Instead, they’ve transformed the darkest void into something beautiful and life-affirming.