Reasons !? How do you justify your actions and reactions to others to yourself? Love and lust loom large in this new release from Alex Rave and The Sceptical, the Manchester based band.

Singer Alex describes the song “as a bitter-sweet love song about somebody very special to me. When writing the lyrics, I found myself in a position where I was immensely dissatisfied with my life, but overwhelmingly in love at the same time. Therefore, the song is about a kind of juxtaposition between love and obsession, the peculiar irony behind seeking self-worth in another, and the battle between love itself and the fear of losing it”

Psych meets doomier guitar pop here. If you’re into multiverse theory, the band are a what if Oasis at their most pastoral and reflective jammed with The Verve and Editors at an undefined time between ‘93 and ‘03. Adult pop with a lineage to the best of British Nineties/Noughties guitar music.

The track conjures up memories of being cast asunder between draining the dregs of a large bottle which you’ve emptied into yourself that night and self pity that love spurned will drive you to wrong decisions at the wrong time. Yet, as you’ve outrun the night, dawn begins to break and watery sunrays warm your bones and a bruised defiance from within enables you to put the bottle down and dust yourself off. Hurt but not lost.

Stately guitar pop with psych swirling on its margins. Alex’s singing is impassioned and gives the song its heart, beating but scarred.

This new release is an outlier for their forthcoming debut ep. With debut single ‘Itch’ covering similar themes and sounds, Alex Rave and The Sceptical are sonic explorers who delve deep into their own past and present to give us music which swirls and spirals around touching on psych and pop and many points in-between and lyrical has a beautiful horror based on our darkest fear of rejection and of our greatest hope…love.

There’s always room for good guitar music and with this release this is what we get. The pleasure and pain.

‘Reasons’ by Alex Rave and The Sceptical is out now

Article by Chris Hibberd