Review

There’s something distinctly peculiar about BC Camplight – an American transplant in Manchester who seems perpetually caught between existential crisis and pop grandeur. His 2007 release A Sober Conversation may not have made seismic waves upon its initial arrival, but returning to it now reveals a curious, well-lacquered gem in the tradition of twisted chamber pop. This is an album made by a man who clearly loves his Brian Wilson and his Randy Newman, but has also spent ample time lingering in the more neurotic corners of piano bars. From the opening notes, *A Sober Conversation* saunters in like the house band at a cocktail party hosted by someone mid-nervous breakdown. And I mean that as a compliment. Tracks like “Blood and Peanut Butter” (yes, really) and “Emily’s Dead to Me” are sardonic and barbed, drawing you in with sunny melodies while delivering lyrics that often toe the line between heartbreak and absurdity. Camplight’s knack for a theatrical flourish is undeniable – you get the sense he’s winking behind the piano as the strings swell, knowing full well he’s just slipped something quite unhinged into your ears. The production is lush, often bordering on bombastic, but never quite tipping into parody. It’s as if Rufus Wainwright hijacked an ELO session and brought along a bottle of something strong and unresolved emotional issues. There’s something defiantly out-of-time about the whole affair. It's 2007, but it might as well be 1974 in Laurel Canyon or a dreamlike version of it stitched together in a Mancunian bedsit. Camplight’s voice – plaintive, unpolished, and yet somehow perfect – carries a kind of bruised theatricality. He doesn’t aim for perfection, and thank God for that. The result is emotionally messy, musically ambitious, and entirely singular. A Sober Conversation is an album that invites you in for a chat and ends up pouring its guts out. It might be awkward at times, maybe even a bit too much, but it's also oddly beautiful – a tragicomic monologue wrapped in baroque pop arrangements. Not everyone will get it, but for those who do, it's an oddly unforgettable listen.

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