Air Castles: "Worlds Apart"

The Swede who looks like he’s won second prize at the Young Boris Johnson of the Year Awards is back, so mopers, romantics, and National-fans everywhere: get yourselves ready for a shock. It’s only a small shock; Max Mansson hasn’t switched genres or anything—his band Air Castles aren’t going to bite the hand that feeds them, and their mostly-perfect EP Night and Day (2009) ensures they’ve got the operatic guitar-pop hand throwing caviar. No, what has changed are the snowflake-gentle stories of daydreaming Mansson told in his lyrics: somewhere along the line he became venomous, and he’s now signed up to that select group of songwriters that specialise in removing wedding rings, even more effectively than finely slathered pile cream (it works). Someone in the Air Castles camp has been through a traumatic break-up, and what better way to exorcise negative energy than to funnel it into a track on the album. It’s definitely more sensible than recording a song about amicable break-ups, where people hug, exchange forwarding addresses and don’t inject full-fat milk into each other’s furniture.

So, while Mansson notches up his anger, his band get a little friskier too, using rabbit jab snare drums with the chiming guitars that made their debut EP so enjoyable. Eddie Brewerton plucks his bass like he’s drawing his own heartbeat, copying the logic of the scheming protagonist as he stalks his cheating girlfriend. “How many times did I fall for it / Won’t let another day go by like this”, hums the cuckold, discharging his loyalties along with his manners to someone who did the shitty on him. As the song builds to a rousing but respectable chorus, where Mansson laments he should’ve sailed away sooner (though not too soon; he’d overtake Enya), he delivers a final au revoir: “Worlds apart, and I’m sorry that I met you / We’re worlds apart.” This is black bin-bag indie at its most level-headed; the stuff you play while you catalogue your partner’s belongings. The album it features on for comes out soon under the provisional title of Lights. That must be what Mansson does next if the catalogued belongings are flammable.