Trembling Blue Stars Fast Trains and Telegraph Wires

Fast Trains and Telegraph Wires is the solid indie pop album you’d expect from a band that’s been proximate to the twee and dream pop scenes going on 14 years: Trembling Blue Stars and Robert Wratten have clearly figured out how to do this by now. It’s a shame this is the last release from the Wratten-fronted outfit.

Wratten — perhaps known best for The Field Mice then Northern Picture Library — is ostensibly one of the most influential names in indie pop. Fast Trains and Telegraph Wires sees him near his best, making the band’s departure all the more untimely. Tracks like Cold Colours and All Our Tomorrows are exciting, energetic dream pop endeavours, and while it’s easy to assume there may be life left in Trembling Blue Stars, there’s no use mourning.

That said, most bands end their careers on staggered missteps, albums hardly worth their weight in salt. Fast Trains and Telegraph Wires isn’t one of those — it’s a fitting end to 14 years as one of the greats of the indie pop resurgence.

There are the expected moments of melancholy, and there are points when the energy pushes the dream pop limits. There’s a lot here to love, with shambolic guitars providing the perfect foil to those unmistakable vocals and blankets of reverb surrounding listeners at just the right moments.

The second disc of the release, the inimitable Cicely Tonight Volume One EP, provides a different bent on Wratten, venturing out from the dream pop stylings into something a bit more eclectic. The Lowest Arc, complete with vocals from Field Mice-alumnus and long-time collaborator Anne Mari Barker-Davies, envelops listeners with something a bit different from Fast Trains and Telegraph Wires.

The whole of the second disc is a more decidedly atmospheric in its intricacies, and perhaps it is more a sign of things to come than it is a farewell. Even the Dream Academy cover Not For Second Prize ventures into the atmospheric with some success, providing a mid-EP breathing space less cluttered with oscillating synthesizers.

When taken in conjunction, Fast Trains and Telegraph Wires and Cicely Tonight Volume One make for a release both retrospective and introspective. They offer a perspective of Wratten and his lauded career as a man at the forefront of indie pop, and if it’s the last we hear from the musician, we can know that his career ended on a high note.