track review ~ 'hayley' ~ pleasure beach

When asked what song he wished he'd written during his career, there was only one answer for The 1975's Matt Healy. "Cyndi Lauper - Girls Just Wanna Have Fun". Undoubtedly a great pop-record, but perhaps an unusual choice for a young indie pin-up. Delve a little deeper however, and you start to hear what Healy was talking about. There's a fragility to Lauper's voice, a genuine fear beneath the synths and that bittersweet melody; it's a formula evident in countless 1975 songs and so to with Belfast's coolest dream-pop band, Pleasure Beach.

Here they take the gentle, lamenting grace of Fleet Foxes 'Ragged Wood' and bring their own porcelain sheen to the table. Like a bubble, you feel it's a sound so beautiful it could burst at any moment. One thing Pleasure Beach do very well  is create a wonderful soundscape, and Hayley is no exception.

Having just been announced to support The Vaccines in Belfast and Dublin this December, the Pleasure Beach juggernaut is showing no sings of slowing down anytime soon.

Big things ahead.

Taylor Johnson