First Rate People :: "The Sweet Hereafter"

First Rate People's debut long-player, Everest, will be released 5 November, a monolith of pop music years in the making. The two lead tracks, "Dark Age" and "I Bet You Won't Get This Joke At All", are both previously released singles, leaving track three, "The Sweet Hereafter" as the first new material the world will hear from the band. A miasma of synth stabs and club echos, "The Sweet Hereafter" bubbles and stutters with a calculated self-assurance as singer Liam Sanagan describes the difficult architecture of a long-distance romance. Sanagan mourns, "a couple missteps, a mistake you never would have guessed" before Mary Cassidy descends on the track like a terror bird. Inverting classic gender roles with an electro-feminism, Cassidy interrogates, "Would you keep me company/Would you cook for me/would you comfort me/if I put your ass on a flight for free/with the money I got for school?" You'll be singing, "put your ass on a flight for free" days later, the best immortalization of scholarship money misused in pursuit of long distance love. The arrangement surges like a Zube Tube underneath Cassidy, Sanagan returning with a secondary hook before the synth loops head for the sky. It is instantly catchy, forecasting the deep and rich pop sensibilities of Everest and the bright future for this band.