Gabi Garbutt and The Illuminations “The Discredited Language of Angels”

This is the debut album from Gabi Garbutt and The Illuminations but, as we understand it, Gabi isn’t new to the indie rock world. But, having got tired of the same old scene, this sees her bringing a fresh blast of horns and soul to her sound.

We love a record that opens up with a blast and this one certainly does that with “The Fool”. It’s a supremely upbeat song which is catchy as hell with a great melody and some punchy brass. That pretty much sets the template for this album. Songs like “This Higher Place” and “Lady Matador” are just joyous tracks which will get you at least shaking your head if not actually up and dancing. The absolute best of the bunch is “Heat Of The Matter”. You’ll struggle to find a better indie pop song released in the past decade,

That’s not to say this album falls into the mistake of being one dimensional. There’s a wider sense of depth to the more intriguing sound of “Reason To Believe”. It’s a song which feels like part ballad and part waltz. Together with “Notes From The Underground” these are the songs which really enable you to savour the beauty of Gabi’s voice. The sense of ‘grandeur’ is kept going with “Armed With Love” but this song also brings a pure pop feel.

It’s clear that Gabi’s time amongst the more ‘standard’ indie scene has enabled her to develop a skill for brilliant indie pop. Surely songs like “Somebody Like You” and “I’ll Do Anything” deserves to be blasted out across radio stations around the world. They’re brilliant, uplifting, slices of clever pop. You’re left thinking things can’t get any better, but then you hear final track “Ravens and Angels”. A track that, in days gone by, would have seen the band gracing the front pages of NME and Select magazines and then finding themselves on Top Of The Pops!

This is one of the best indie pop albums that we have heard in a long time. We don’t do end of year polls but, if we did, we can guarantee this would be near the top (if not at the top!). The highest accolade we can pay an album is that we immediately bought it on vinyl (something you can also do here https://gabigarbutt.bandcamp.com/merch). If the festive time isn’t bringing you enough joy then this album is bound to light up your life.