Thomas Bush - The Next 60 Years

A third Thomas Bush outing of mordant urban miserablism that doubles down hard on the man's torch carrying for a very distinct type of English-sounding DIY music making. Tell me Bush has uncovered his very own Goodnight Sweetheart time portal back to Cold Storage circa 1980 and, if I squint a little and you can hold my gaze long enough, I might just believe you. There's a strange metallic loneliness to The Next 60 Years that seems built from that era's core elements - This Heat atonality, the alien minimalism of Young Marble Giants and the artful abrasions of first four albums Eno, as if reimagining the pastoralism of Another Green World in greyscale urban decay. Does that lead us to Flaming Tunes? Most paths seem to these days and no complaints when they do. Still, if Bush does plug into a very specific lineage of distinctly gloomy English music making, then he does so in his own image, that wistful croon a burdened call from the darker edges of his own journey through the night, the meaning of things tricky to grasp, but the feeling unmistakable, the solemn voice of a figure on the outside of the circle. His misery as a butterfly and replete with a similar fated and doomed beauty.