Cast any preconceptions aside, Cast are back in the building.

Release Date: 16th February 2024

Label: Cast Recordings

Format: CD / vinyl / digital

Were it not that they seem always to be on tour of late, judging by the adverts in the glossies, you could be mistaken into feeling that Cast are a historical anomaly. Whilst 1992 isn’t really that long ago, well, sort of, the fresh faces of the beaming scallies forever etched into memory by their debut album’s cover, doesn’t, and even shouldn’t, allow for ageing to ever be an option. But, with no portraits in the attic, the current three-piece, which we will get to in a mo’, suggest the intervening decades have been, well, shall we say well lived? That debut, All Change, with the largest opening sales ever accrued for a first album on their label, Polydor, came in 1995, with three more records, including a second platinum and a silver disc, ahead calling it a day.

2010 saw the band reform with a line-up of the two original members, John Power (of The La’s) and Peter Wilkinson (of Shack), with near originals Keith O’Neill and Liam “Skin” Tyson. This is their third album, allowing for a change in bass player and, now, the loss of a dedicated bass player altogether. So Power, O’Neill and Tyson, with Power picking back up bass duties along with his guitar and vocals. Is it still Brit-Pop? Well, I guess that depends on whether that was ever enough to describe the songmanship of Power, who remains sole songwriter. Given the disrepute that particular label has fallen into, tending now to signify lumpen plodding, all fringes and eyebrows, I think and hope not. (It isn’t!)

Rather than an all electric swagger, the album opens, beautifully, with Bluebird. The picked acoustic guitar, let alone the title, could be Buffalo Springfield, but the second Powers’ impassioned Scouse moan hits in, this simple opener is just the attention grab needed. The chuggier Forever And A Day follows, a relatively simple composition, but, once the backing vocals begin a crooning chorus, a big chorus is inevitable. With a hook as big as Ahab’s, it is a stonker, sounding both of its day and yet somehow applicable to the present. Rain That Falls feels a little by numbers, but, as it is Merseybeat by numbers, it is forgiven. (And yes, I mean Merseybeat ’65, not ’95, where the melody was always king.) Tyson gets to let his guitar howl a bit in the sidelines; not for no reason has he been a Robert Plant regular these many years, in his other job. Catchy, innit, with, as the coda switches gear, a neat twist!

Far Away allows Powers to really stretch his tonsils and throw his voice, soaring, above the guitars. This had been a single and, were this, thirty years ago, ladies and gentlemen, I think we’d have a chartbuster. Any prejudice I have built up, about this style of music in the intervening years, well, it’s taking a huge battering here. More tuneful sonics from Tyson and I’m grinning like a loon. I confess Starry Eyes loses a little momentum, at least in the rent-a-riff verses, lifted by the chorus that tries hard to shake off that realisation. The descent of backing vocals is pretty spesh too. Love You Like I Do reprises that 60’s feel; I gather Powers wanted to recreate the bridging connection between the demise of The La’s and the appearance of Cast, and I guess that’s what my ears are hearing. Love Is The Call feels a continuation the same, at least in the mood and momentum, each maintained with graft and skill, most bands content with one or the other. Is there still a place for literate guitar pop, even when the emphasis on more on pop than guitar? More Tyson chicanery, which, as he squalls, has me suddenly recognising quite what a thump O’Neill is putting into the tubs.

A brisk stomping beat introduces I Have Been Waiting, a brisk rocker that is clearly not designed for Sunday study listening, that fact not lost on me, as I sit here, but no great stretch to imagine a sweaty Saturday night sing, or even shoutalong. A song for beer and boys. Sticking in this style, the velocity hangs on in there for the superlative Look Around, a perfect marriage of words and exuberance, with emotions all carried away in the deluge of them all. A sad song in fast forward, and, with regret a full morning away, it is masterful.

Time Is Like A River carries the portent of a Western widescreen, twang to the fore, before the band begin to harmonise, sounding not unlike primetime Hollies. And that’s a compliment, Play this to your Dad and play this to your son, they will each get it. OK, as the mariachi trumpets chime in, maybe less so, but the trio pull it back. It’s a slight outlier here, but an intriguing one. Closer, Tomorrow Calls My Name slots back into style, not a step mislaid, and I’ll swear the vocal is a ringer for Gerry Marsden. Again, a compliment, the song could easily be an outtake from Ferry Cross The Mersey, the film. (Look it up!)

This album shouldn’t work so bloomin’ well, I shouldn’t like it nearly this much, but, I can’t help it, I do, I really do. You really need to give it a go.

Far Away isn’t that far away, it’s right here:

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