Parekh & Singh - Ocean

If you're a sucker for love songs, if you were raised on a diet of The Smiths and you yearn for a pure, uncomplicated expression of something you know can’t possibly exist in the adult world, then Parekh & Singh are making the music you need to listen to today; this hour; right now.  

The titles speak volumes. I Love You Baby, I Love You Doll, for instance, or Me and You with its winning refrain of ‘me and you / we can do all the things that you want to do.’ Panda opens with ‘I’d love to fall in love and understand,’ and confides that frontman Nischay Parekh may well have been a panda in a past life. 

But these are just details. Because while Parekh is saying all of the sweet things that secretly we all want to hear, his compadre Jivraj Singh is making the best Death Cab for Cutie album DCFC have yet to make. This is pop music and it swoons (see Ghost), and it shimmers (title track Ocean is a highpoint) and it occasionally sparkles with a mildly experimental fizz (Secrets).

If you’re a tough cookie, Ocean might not be for you. But if you like music to give you a hug and a kiss, and to tell you everything is going to be alright after all? Parekh & Singh are smashing it.