In my mind Pete Green has been around forever – I interviewed him on this blog 6 (!) years ago – but after checking I now know it’s true: this is really his debut solo album. The main man behind The Regulars, The Pete Green Corporate Juggernaut and The Sweet Nothings released some great singles under his own name a handful of years back, but never got around to making it full length. Until now, with ‘The Glass Delusion’.
“I could have been much more than this, but this is all that there is”, Pete starts on the opening title track and immediate highlight. This is one of the most beautiful songs I’ve heard all year. It may be selfish to think that way, but it secretly – just a bit, and only for this reason – makes me quite happy about his sombre mood, because happy, content and confident songwriters rarely write songs like this that go straight through the chest and embrace our hearts.
If you mainly remember Pete from entertaining rants like ‘I haven't got a Myspace because Myspace fucking sucks’ and ‘Best British Band supported by Shockwaves’ you’re in for a surprise (even though some subtle humour still sneaks in at places). On this album we meet the singer-songwriter at his most sparse and introspective, and it fits him extremely well. His confessionalism is so intimate in most of these songs that it’s almost impossible to not imagine him sitting right next to you in your dark bedroom, sharing, venting but also soothing both his and your deepest emotions and frustrations. It’s not a happy record, but it never gets bleak or too gloomy. There’s always hope in the darkness and darkness in the hope. Like life, indeed. The way Pete quotes Katrina and the Waves’ ‘Walking on sunshine’ in ‘Bright horizon’ illustrates this perfectly: he’s not, in fact, walking on sunshine at all, but the option is there, a possibility for the future. His surprising cover of The Deirdres’ ‘Fun to pretend’ manages to fit the sometimes bitter, sometimes sweet suit of reality here perfectly and mixes in really well with the rest of the songs.
Even if life turns shit sometimes. Even if most of your days seem unfair. Even if your government does and says things that are the opposite of everything you stand for. Even if it’s cold, wet and windy outside. Or rather, especially when it’s cold, wet and windy outside: you’re not alone. Pete Green and ‘The Glass Delusion’ will be by your side, onward.
“One day we’ll find an island where no one’s ever been. One day we’re gonna go there, you and me.” ('One day we’ll find an island')
Until then, we’ll let it go by.
Pete Green bandcamp
Pete Green website
