The Honeymoon Suite cover

The Honeymoon Suite

Released

Butterfly Child’s Joe Cassidy still sounds awe-struck on The Honeymoon Suite, which is, perhaps, no surprise: he married around the time of the album’s writing and recording. The twelve songs here are less oblique and coded than his first rush of material (four EPs, and a debut album, Onomatopoeia), and while he still has a poet’s reverence for (and facility with) language, the writing here is more direct. The real change is in the way the music breathes – Richard Thomas’s drums give Cassidy’s songs a sturdiness they’d not had before; the addition of strings and horns nudge the album closer to a kind of ornate baroque, at times, that places it within the slipstream of ‘60s orch-pop. The key to The Honeymoon Suite, though, is Cassidy’s divine knack for melody.

Jon Dale

Suggestions
Bavarian Fruit Bread cover

Bavarian Fruit Bread

Hope Sandoval & the Warm Inventions
The Moon and the Melodies cover

The Moon and the Melodies

Cocteau Twins, Simon Raymonde, Harold Budd, Elizabeth Fraser, Robin Guthrie
Tiny Waves, Mighty Sea cover

Tiny Waves, Mighty Sea

Future Pilot A.K.A.
Candylion cover

Candylion

Gruff Rhys
Whirlpool cover

Whirlpool

Chapterhouse
Buzzle Bee cover

Buzzle Bee

The High Llamas
Victorialand cover

Victorialand

Cocteau Twins