It’s impossible not to be slightly daunted by confronting your first album from a band with thirteen full-length LPs from a near thirty-year long career behind them. The accompanying sensation of crushing failure as a wannabe-critic/listener put aside, a plethora of other questions emerge: What am I to expect? Is Fade a good place to begin and assert judgement? If not where is there to go? Their name is ubiquitous in the indie music sphere, of a similar touchstone standing to The Flaming Lips perhaps, not in sound necessarily but in their status as a cult group with their origins in the 80s maintaining their presence in popular conscious and parlance throughout. The sense is that I should know them, and know them well: Stereogum recently released a fairly comprehensive ‘Worst to Best’, threatening to the uninitiated in its totality. But then again, perhaps it’s the ideal mental-state with which to confront any new music - blissful ignorance perhaps being the closest to objectivity any individual can get. So it is what with this blank slate I confronted Fade, a title which at this late-stage perhaps threatened to become the dead horse with which lazy/over-exposed reviewers would flagellate the record, the sound of an artist fading to black. Instead, whilst by the close of the record fading certainly comes to mind, it is of a different kind: into the ether. Grand portions effectively float - calming, delicate, expansively and sumptuously composed. It’s the sound of musicians immensely assured by their craft and equally comfortable at their most outwards-reaching and intricately detailed moments of quiet. It is perhaps with this sense of comfortable prowess that the record does take a while to settle into an affirmed sense of direction. Whilst the opening salvo all evidently derives from the same source – the dreamy interchange of vocals the characteristic thread which runs throughout - the songs themselves initially knock against each other somewhat, perhaps out of a conscious desire to exhibit an eclectic edge, to try on slightly different aesthetics and determine which will lead the record onwards. The songs themselves are well-weighted and produced, individually ranging from listen-able to borderline great, but as part of the record as a whole the chirpy synths that characterise the straight-forward indie pop of ‘Well You Better’ can’t help but jar with the opening feedback and distortion of ‘Paddle Forward’. Once this slight pacing issue is resolved, however, with the arrival of a later cohesion in tone, the record really begins to shine. There’s a particular run from ‘I’ll Be Around’ onwards to the close of the album ‘Before We Run’ which hits a glorious groove, the contemplative mood struck upon from the record’s very first chorus (“Cause this is it for all we know / So say good night to me / And lose no more time, no time / Resisting the flow”) fully asserting itself musically. Here the strings and horns in particular are gorgeous - never dominating or particularly distinctive even but honed to perfection - a centrally considered aspect of the songs themselves rather than a veneer. So it is here with the close that I can answer my earlier questions. What am I to expect? A record of rich structure and composition that expresses the band’s range and mature song-writing with elegance, the mood one of contemplation and a growing sense of calm. Is Fade a good place to begin? Almost undoubtedly, a record that becomes increasingly warm and enveloping, evidently created with care and love and which allows the listener to fully engage in such sentiments themselves. If not where is there to go? I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One perhaps. And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out after. Maybe anywhere… but right now I’d be quite happy to stay right here. Fade is a treat.