Welcome To Neverland
Imagine a hot yet breezy summer day. Wind chimes, rustling leaves- so Autumn instead perhaps and three London based lads quite obviously disillusioned into believing their home is far from the busy London streets and overcrowded, roadwork repellent roads. Instead - a gentle, deserted town in a country state, where everybody speaks with a slight twang in their accent - Alabama maybe? Larsen B bring their 6 track E.P to the fort, providing a fantasized world, fulfilling a dream of decades ago; a life where climate change and government friction didn't exist, or if it did, it didn't matter.
Confident no doubt in their own release, Larsen B use reflection as a continuing theme throughout the E.P- titling it with "treasured memories", claiming British Sea Power to be their primary influence. I don't see this to be honest - it's different to that, different in a good way as well I think.
Larsen B manage to create an air of boredom on first listen. Envisage your grandparents on their narrow boat. First listen and this feels like what they would listen to - and make you listen to. All day. Possibly only through mistaking these guys for one of their free CD's they receive every week with the newspaper that only old people buy. I can see it now- most probably even informing me that they 'don't make music like this these days'.
Larsen B's first release only really feels like three or four songs- not the 6 it claims to be. Pretty short but by no means simple. Three good musicians have made what some might criticise as being pleasant background music but after a few listens- I most definitely beg to differ. Any band that can title songs "Red Indians And Witches', "Old Rope" and "Pollen" and get away with it deserve some form of recognition, as quite frankly the relief of a non-indie pop record made me feel revived. The gentle, soft, gratifying sound is still with me- even if Neverland doesn't really exist.