Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

When a single gets released in time for the summer, the hopes of it being an anthem, to take on a life of its own and being heard sang under the breaths of women, men and children alike, as if the sunshine and decent weather makes people more susceptible to the sound of the light and breezy and the harmonies laid down, and the song becomes the over-riding memory aid when discussing where you were and what you did. The light and the breezy, everybody’s favourite Beach Boy track can sit in that particular slot.

However when the song is dark, foreboding and more enticing than a free lorry load of ice cream being poured into a swimming pool and a hundred thousand flakes handed out by the film star of your choice. The light and breezy can often then find itself out played, out gunned and out thought; in Matchstickmen’s new single Cheap Little Thrill the sound of the dark and beautiful are enough to make the summer stand out with dramatic intensity.

Cheap Little Thrill, certainly not cheap, hardly little but oh boy what a thrill indeed, a thrill that speaks and revels in the danger of delight, that takes great joy in the aural stimulation offered by Lewis Wright’s vocals and is more than given a moody, mean and dynamic musical backdrop by Peter Donnelly, Iain Forsyth, Mark O’Brien and Dave Hornby, so much so that the overall effect is one that lifts and soars as the ear cannot help but like what is coming across.

If summer is a time to harvest memories, a time in which the pleasure of the chase of the perfect summer song hangs in the air, then to have the twin volatile peaks of agony and ecstasy ride into view as if on a noble, battle ready steed is more than enough to make a Cheap Little Thrill last all season long.

A great song delivered by a great band, a summer song unlike any other.

Ian D. Hall