Favours For Sailors - I Dreamt That I Dreamt That You Loved Me In Your Dreams

(Muso's Guide, February 9, 2009)

Single review

Tuneful American college pop is a great thing indeed.

There’s nothing like an upbeat, unfeasibly cheery song shot through with the mere hint of adolescent melancholia and - get this - topped off with the bright sunshiney light of California sunshine.

Try Fountains Of Wayne for that tight, intelligent power pop that only Yanks can offer and you’ll be pleasantly surprised, and here are some new pretenders to the crown… Hold the phone! What’s that? Favours For Sailors aren’t American? Well, of course they’re not. They can spell ‘favours’ right for a start.

Hailing from the considerably less exotic south east of England, this giddy four piece are a testament to the power of hard work. Claiming to have locked themselves away in 2005 when the last rays of summer sunshine were inching away from the capital, they made the leap of faith into the blue. The blue, in this case, being the popular music deep.

The improbably-named ‘I Dreamt That I Dreamt That You Loved Me In Your Dreams’ smacks of all the good stuff mentioned above - tight, accomplished rhythm and delightfully light vocals usher in the age of Favours For Sailors with considerable ease. Starting with “whoa whoas” to cheer the darkest February day, there’s nonetheless something darker afoot here - “Nothing’s what it seems, get the fuck out of my dreams” trills singer JRC, and you just know he means business.

Tuneful, fun music to pogo to with a frightfully accomplished guitar solo, Favours For Sailors here take their musical cues from the old guard - in 30 years’ time, this will be ‘Since You Been Gone’. The Rainbow one, not the Kelly Clarkson one.

Favours For Sailors are clearly having trouble with reality - they live in a dream, dream, dream world, and they still can’t get their hands on that girl. But along the way, they’ve found some lovely pop moments, and even the final lyrical letdown can’t take the cheer out of this one. Doing American blissful, off-kilter quirk-pop better than our friends across the pond, it’d take a heartless soul to resist this. Hello, sailor.