When Young “Reasons To Dream”

When we read that When Young have an ‘ability to craft spikey yet melodic songs which delve lyrically into everything from love and insecurities to pacificism and the gap between the haves and have-nots in Britain today’ we knew that we had to check this album out.

First song, “Pretty Pure” actually throws us back to those days when bands like Sleeper were delivering catchy indie pop songs on a regular basis. It’s a similar story with “You’re Grand” and the excellent “Blank Walls”, songs which have the feel that they’ll become alternative radio favourites.

But, When Young are far from being a kind of Brit pop throwback. In fact, their sound has more of an electronica feel to it. Songs like “Never Let Go” and “The Future” remind us of the vastly underrated The Sounds. They have a melodic sound that’s mixed with a kind of modern, almost sci-fi feel.

There’s also a sense that this is very much a ‘now’ album. The wide landscape sound of “Blow Up The World” and “Heartbroken” are the sort of tracks that have made both The Killers and The 1975s such global bands.

Reasons To Dream is a pretty apt title for this album. The songs on it suggest a band with huge ambition. There’s certainly a sense that When Young could be destined for festival headline sets rather than just indie clubs. This is a bright and breezy album that deserves to be picked up by a mainstream audience.