Album Review: Art Of Fighting - Luna Low

Twelve years since their last album was released, Art Of Fighting have come out of hibernation and delivered a superb record that oozes charm and quality from end to end. Having started the recording process as far back as 2012, Luna Low is chock-full of all that was great about the '90s - Recovery, Au Go Go Records and flannel shirts. Sure, the three Brown(e)’s and one Frew are older and greyer, but they show on Luna Low they are still master songwriters and performers.

Their restrained indie-rock can be found in spades here - lead vocalist Ollie Browne sounds like he hasn’t aged one day, effortlessly drifting from lower registers to falsetto in the blink of an eye, and from R&B soul singer to indie darling without any apparent effort. Opener Genie sees founders Ollie and bassist Peggy Frew share chorus duties, while Dickhead’s Lament is uncharacteristically literal and could easily serve as the eulogy for Miles from Sideways or Rob from High Fidelity. Listening to the urgency on songs like the title track or the quiet-loud of Brainbreeze is entrancing, while it’s the band’s sincerity, a sort of grateful, slow melancholy, that makes this a proper Art Of Fighting album. 

Although the nostalgia is obvious, the group completely entrance with their fourth album, advocating experiences that are happy, sad and all the places in between. If there is such a thing as a coming-of-age album for 40-somethings that happily ignores the what-ifs, then this has to be it.