4.

Another Sky

Beach Day

On most occasions when I sit down to write my annual List, I find there is a distinct gap between the year’s utterly essential records and ‘the rest’ (however good ‘the rest’ might well be). This year that dividing line is located here: Beach Day is the first of four 2024 defining records for me.

I really enjoyed Another Sky’s 2020 debut, I Slept on The Floor, but not enough for it to make that year’s List. This sophomore effort is a massive step up. Another Sky make anthemic, proggy shoegaze, albeit relatively light on the prog – enough to keep things interesting but not more. Beach Day features as many head-bobbing melodies, riffs, and soaring choruses as it does shimmering dreamscapes. It also features 90s and early 00s influences aplenty. Radiohead are a reference point (especially The Bends, but also OK Computer and then, on closer ‘Swirling Smoke’, Kid A). Snow Patrol are perhaps an even more persistent comparator: the opening of ‘I Never Had Control’, for example, is right off Final Straw. At the record’s heavier end, ‘Psychopath’ has something of the Muse about it. All of the tracks are great instrumentally, but the reason Beach Day goes stratospheric is because of Catrin Vincent’s astounding voice, which ranges from androgynous croon to full blown falsetto. Her unique vocals are showcased here far better than on the band’s debut and are stunning across this whole record. Add to that some wonderful lyrics, which range from the lambasting of our new post-truth world (see ‘A Feeling’: ‘she thinks she has all the facts / well, I have a feeling’), to traumatic themes of control and abuse (see the aforementioned, and frankly devastating, ‘I Never Had Control’: ‘my body is so much more than what happened to it’).

Overall, Beach Day is an outstanding record. It’s concerning, then, that Another Sky initially postponed, and then cancelled, their supporting tour, with ominous statements about ‘respecting privacy’. Seemingly they are now on indefinite hiatus. First and most importantly, of course, I hope all the band members (and all their special people) are ok, or very soon will be. Secondarily, I do hope we get more Another Sky at some point, in some form. Cause they have just cracked it, and at the very least they deserve the victory lap.