When Britain Was Great＜限定盤/Colored Vinyl＞

European Sun came together when musician/writer Steve Miles met U.K. indie pop stalwart Rob Pursey (of Heavenly, Tender Trap, the Catenary Wires, etc.) through a mutual musician friend. With Miles on lead vocals and guitar, and backed by Pursey and his frequent bandmates Amelia Fletcher and drummer Ian Button, they launched European Sun with an eponymous album in 2020. It showcased Miles anxiously observant, underdog-minded spoke-sung lyrics within a tuneful, D.I.Y indie pop setting. With the vocally kindred Elin Miles stepping in for Fletcher on backing vocals, their second album, When Britain Was Great, sees Miles let loose more as a writer, with confessional songs full of observant social commentary, pop culture references, and timidity. Nowhere is this more thoroughly on display than on the 17-and-a-half-minute "School Report," a song released as a single and included on the CD edition of the album. A spoken-word entry backed by a groovy, psych-tinged garage pop, it winds its way through an early morning, beginning with "I wake up before I want to/Like a wound reopening," then stumbling upon on old school reports ("Judgments carried through life"). He goes on to self-consciously ignore the doorbell and phone calls and to endure breakfast shortcomings, shirt stains, knee pain, blurry phone photos, and general overwhelm, while noting things like, "I know that to be happy you have to live in the world as it is, not as youd like it to be." Its a narrative with a climax and a twist. Leading up to that sometimes-closer, however, are ditties like "Going Viral," which touches on multiple meanings of the phrase; the plaintive "Dad," which switches things up with piano and strings; and the ominous "In Bedford Falls," a recitation that sets a hometown winter scene with phrases like "From the toxic fumes that rose up as the broken graphite burned/Like a decomposing phoenix over darkest Chernobyl" before making an appeal for more equity and kindness in the world ("We have to start by reaching out to hold somebodys hand"). Elsewhere, song titles drop names like Arthur Seaton (a character in the novel and 1960 film Saturday Night and Sunday Morning), Edward Colston (an English slave trader and member of Parliament whose statue was torn down during Black Lives Matter protests in 2020), and actor Ncuti Gatwa. In the ironic "When Britain Was Great," Miles skewers the toxic misogyny and racism of the Post-War Era idealized by some. While the sentiments here run deep, the delivery is mostly fun, as Miles and his band put a 60s beat-music spin on vignettes and commentaries that likewise connect the past and the present. ~ Marcy Donelson