The Charlatans
★★★★
We Are Love
BMG. CD/DL/LP
Joy-sparking fourteenth album from steadfast band goes for hearts and minds.
“This is the place/These are the days,” sings Tim Burgess on We Are Love, the title track of The Charlatans’ first LP since 2017’s star-studded Different Days. He means it, too: while this record has a strong line-up of producers – Blood Orange’s Dev Hynes, Spector’s Fred Macpherson, Stephen Street – We Are Love largely swerves its predecessor’s collaborator-heavy approach, pushing The Charlatans front and centre in their universe. It works beautifully, the band gently distorting their songwriting surfaces with sudden psychedelic sun-spots and experimental flares (such as Peter Gordon’s saxophone on Glad You Grabbed Me, or the sound-collaging Salt Water, out beside the cosmic seaside). Out On Our Own sounds like the Sgt. Pepper run-out groove has leaked in through the studio vents; there’s more unexpected merging of past and present on the North Country Boy-sampling Now Everything. Different days, again, but The Charlatans endure with warmth and style.