It’s time to get your dancing trousers on! Channeling Avici-style vibes, Take Me Back is an uptempo Adrenalin-soaked rush through the sort of nostalgia-doused lyrical adventures that have done very good business in recent years.
The euphoria-inducing kick drum on the beat (followed by a hand-clap on the off) points the way right through a dusty western romp that deserves to be heard.
The rolling, spanked acoustic guitars are mixed bright and wide, and with a popcorn synth that provides unusual ear candy along with an insistent electric guitar riff to set up the soundscape for the impassioned vocals.
The voice is a mixture of earnest, confessional intensity on the verses and then, like the ripcord being pulled on a parachute, it opens up to a vital rasp (not unlike a young Bryan Adams) with bundles of energy on the choruses, imploring to be taken back ‘to where I belong’. And there are some strenuous, heartfelt vocal ad-libs sprinkled on top of these choruses, too.
The very title talks of days and things gone by and ‘where it all started’ – and the lyric wisely isn’t too specific: it might be about craving youth, innocence or an old love. Or all of the above. What’s clear is it’s in the past. The finished track comes across as a very wholesome craving, too, as ‘I’ll see you at Sunday’s church’.
It’s over very quickly, but the wind-through-the-hair rush may stay with you for some time courtesy of this smartly-produced, well-sung slice of house-pop.
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