This writer first came across Childhood in expectation-free circumstances; a Friday night support slot for Kettering’s own retro-psychedelics, Temples.
Suitably impressed the unprecedented un-British step was taken of approaching gangly lead singer Ben Romans-Hopcraft after their set with the intention of finding out just who this mystery outfit were. “We’re called Childhood” he almost whispered, before going on, “We meant to say it during the set but we erm…didn’t.”
Self promoting scions of Lady Gaga the former Nottingham University students are certainly not.
Impressions on the night was of a group who were enthralled by the ‘indie’ chameleon in its various guises throughout the years, from its raincoaty beginnings in The Cure and Echo and The Bunnymen, to the late-eighties flirtation with acid house, past Britpop and through to the likes of White Lies and Foster The People.
‘Lacuna‘ delivers something less prosaic than that however, containing in it a batch of songs that rarely stop for breath, making up in enthusiasm and rickety charm for what they lack in inventiveness.
Possibly the best of them are the pair of pre-released singles, opener ‘Blue Velvet‘, counting its sixties blessings and stuffed full of rosy-cheeked guitar melodies, whilst the dippy Madchester-isms of ‘Solemn Skies‘ (tremelo on full, four-four tempo and vocals drowned in echo) is in effect Childhood at their most child-like. Wisely, they choose to diversify out of this narrow creative gully, their round tour moving on to take in the nu-gaze of ‘Sweeter Preacher‘, the indie-disco clatter of ‘Falls Away‘ and ‘Pay For Cool‘s scratchier, more direct almost-riffing.
‘Lacuna’s strengths are also its weaknesses: it’s unpretentious brio is losing-it friendly, but hedonism is a currency spent very quickly. Tellingly, where Romans-Hopcraft and friends pause they prove they can also create depth, the post noughties soul of ‘Tides‘ taking them beyond the sum of their influences, a picture brought into even clearer relief on ‘Right Beneath Me‘, on which the singer opens mysteriously with the line, “This song won’t burn no bridges”, and then climbs all over a hypnotic snare and clutch of guitar notes that point to the every day hypnosis of tiredness and stunted emotion.
They say you can’t tell everything from a name. Certainly having seen Happyness recently it’s fair to say they won’t be going up Sunshine Mountain in the foreseeable future. And yet Childhood capture a sense of youthful innocence and brash perfectly; ‘Lacuna’ delivers its thrills in big, adolescent gulps.
It occasionally misses the mark and you wouldn’t necessarily want to live with it forever, but the retro sugar rush is as satisfying as it is unpretentious.
