Candy Falls Here

Even if Candy Falls Here were a better record than it is, it can never be ‘essential listening’ – that ship has sailed early last decade. But these submerged vocals, these rough-yet-sweet sugar-high rifforamas and this lo-fi Sensitive Bloke moping could unmistakably be from no other lank-haired, flannel-clad era.

Before we condemn Union Kid to grunge-nostalgia hell, two (slightly) mitigating things. First, happily, the usual please-kill-me trap of endless, self-obsessed flagellation is avoided. Instead, we get a pleasantly self-deprecating wistfulness and a rather nifty Sonic Youth-ful optimism.

Second, some sweetie-pie sentiments about (inevitably) girls, life and being in a band with your mates are couched in unexpectedly modern language – that is, ‘modern’ in the sense that lyrics like “You know we fell like dominoes/The first time that we talked alone” and outros that shout “We’re in love/We’re in love” probably would have gotten them pelted to death with bootleg copies of Bleach by the Campaign for Real Rock a decade ago.