Whitney - Golden Days

Julien Ehrlich and Max Kakacek are an everyday two-piece, on face value. But there’s so much more stirring in Whitney’s melting pot. For one, Ehrlich is a singing drummer existing a million miles away from gimmicky Phil Collins impressions. His earnest falsetto doesn’t sit with a typecast for that role, either. And on the evidence of debut single ‘No Woman’ and new cut ‘Golden Days’, the pair go beyond their simple size. At times, it sounds like they’re channelling a hundred other bands at once, snapped up from different timestamps throughout the past few decades. ‘No Woman’ was as sweet-hearted and strangely uplifting as lonely, downtrodden songs can get. ‘Golden Days’ plays a similar card. On the outside, it’s an upbeat, dreamy ode to fleeting youth, but there’s more swimming around under the surface. “Those golden days snuck away from us,” Ehrlich laments, in the style of a diary entry. He sings about being in new parts of the world, not being able to connect a relationship’s increasingly scattered jigsaw pieces. “It’s a shame we can’t get it together now,” runs the nonchalant chorus, sung like Ehrlich’s just spilled a teaspoon of milk. Whitney capture so much at once - love, loss, everything in between - and they walk a beautifully balanced tightrope. It’s magnifying.