The Sentimental Tourists – Without Love We Expire – Album Review
by Killian Laher

Paul Page (ex-Whipping Boy) and Dave Long (ex-Into Paradise) have recorded several EPs as Sentimental tourists and have now prepared a full-length album for release.  Some of the songs have already seen the light of day on the EPs, but here they are collected as a cohesive piece of work.

It opens with Living In Smoke Dreams, featuring Long’s smooth, reassuring vocals over Page’s fuzzy guitar work.  Under the Waves, Happy Beatle and Ghosts feature great big bruised major chords that make you want to punch the air with joy, the latter of these being particularly resonant.  When The Moment Comes has an insistent ringing guitar line and a sing-along melody.

They are just as effective when they dial the intensity down a bit, on tracks like Distant Rain, Page’s textured guitar lines soaring under Long’s singing. Witches Lane is particularly nice, with the most liquid guitar lines that send you sky high, as Long sings, “I was just too high to take it all in”.  Jupiter Is Descending is one of the moodier moments on the album, including a downcast melody with minimal but discernible percussion.  Penultimate track Forever is quite different from the rest, an old-timey style duet between Long and Joanne Loughman (of The Glee Club).  Paul Page’s guitar work really inhabits the whole album.

It’s not music that wants to change the world.  It’s music that knows the world, well, a little bit anyway, and has made its peace with the good and the bad in it.  You’ll get it at their Bandcamp page here.

Ghosts