- Label: 'Last Night From Glasgow'
- Genre: 'Pop'
- Release Date: '26.9.25.'
Our Rating:
Rapture Party is the debut album by Inverness based synth pop trio The Joshua Hotel, who I hope didn't meet in the bijou bar at Inverness bus station. The trio are Joshua Mackenzie, Joshua Gilbert and Louis Slorach with guest vocalist Shanine Gallagher, they recorded with Jason Shaw at Fuzzface in Largs. The Joshua Hotel are playing an album launch show on 10th October at Music From Big Blue in Glasgow.
The album opens with Hometown 2001 a synth pop tale of a life changing day that they will never forget back in 2001, can they ever forget what went down, they are holding on to the hope it can all be fixed with a deep rumbling synth bass, hoping they never went joyriding that fateful day.
Our Lonely Hearts is the first track to feature special guest vocalist Shanine Gallagher on this rather gorgeous song of love and yearning on the road to Loch Ness, this is rather catchy and sounds very familiar after a couple of listens.
Beautiful Day for an apocalypse they must send you a postcard to commemorate, probably from Strathpeffer or another of the highland beauty spots they have on their doorstep to woo yet another love with romantic days out.
Easy Feeling for an easy love, this is almost a slow dance, full of ethereal feelings of love and happiness at how at ease you make them feel. Local Girl Builds A Rocket and the question I have is where she is going to launch it from, somewhere on the outskirts of Drumnadrochit so they can clear some of the tourist tat shops for the launch pad hopefully, this is very catchy.
Show Me Around is a love song, having met a diplomats daughter and how her world clashes with theirs, can they possibly inhabit each other's worlds. Clever (In The Eyes Of Others) is one of those slurs many of us have heard, this has enough snark to be lyrically in Jarvis Cocker territory, like the rest of the album the tune is a total earworm.
Conversations in The Dark in this case not the ones where you shout at each other in a nightclub, this is far more bedroom sweet love chat, trying to make sure you stay with them. The Changes you need to make if you want this love to work, this is almost like Prefab Sprout have gone Synth pop, they just want to make sure you want to come back to them and be with them once more, they promise they won't hurt you anymore.
Martin Amiss isn't about the author, but is another love gone wrong song for someone who is described as sick in the head, that for some of us would be a total compliment, he has regrets, but it won't stop him carrying on as a true highland stag.
The album closes with The Final Joyride a slow thoughtful reflection on all the heartbreak and pain they may have caused along the way, while joyriding on the back road of the highlands, complete with some very breathy backing vocals to accompany that fateful drive in the summer of 14 this is a rather downbeat conclusion to a very catchy pop album.
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