If Mystery Jets still make you think of 2008 then it’s time to catch up.
Electro-led daydreams of girls down the road are a distant memory and now, six albums in, the five-piece (guitarist William Rees left after this record’s completion) are turning their attention to far more pressing issues.
Politically charged Screwdriver gets things off to a raucous start, with grungy riffs and a rousing call for fightback against the alt-Right. “When the power of love overcomes / Then the world will be ours”, sets a defiant yet hopeful tone.
Campfire Song takes the tempo and guitars down a notch (before delivering a masterful key change), as frontman Blaine Harrison revisits his younger self, recalling protests against the Iraq War and urging him to keep the faith. “Somewhere in your eyes,” he sings. “There is a spirit that will never die.”
Delayed when Harrison, who has spina bifida, was hospitalised last year, A Billion Hearts often feels more pertinent than it would have last year. Hospital Radio, a soaring, heartfelt ode to the NHS, was penned when Harrison faced a separate hospital stay, and couldn’t feel more timely.
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