Consumer Guide Album

Bar Italia: Tracey Denim [Matador, 2023]
As 50 bears down on them and all too quickly waves goodbye, alt-rock oldtimers tend to get exercised about how pure or derivative or clever or facile or cheap or confused or just plain inadequate young style/genre mix-and-matchers like this cheeky and subtle young UK trio may or may not be. But having never fully worked out myself what shoegaze and its satellites even were, I find myself thrown back on ancient pop verities: melody-clarity-decency, whether kind or irate. So I'm touched when sweetly singsong Nina Cristante switches from first person to third person so as better to croon/murmur words of encouragement to a going-on-distraught Jezmi Tarik: "I know you trip and stumble when you're trying to be graceful/And there's no way you don't think it's funny/So brush yourself off and lift yourself up/And I'll be here ready to hold you." Have a heart, oldsters. Whatever their shifty ambitions, they're trying to be nice, and these days that's a good thing. So why don't we just hum along? A-