Rosa Walton – Tell Me It’s A Dream

This debut record by one-half of prodigious London duo Let’s Eat Grandma plays like an exercise in catharsis, especially after the pair’s last album, 2022’s Two Ribbons, was so palpably shrouded in grief. Walton’s casual forays into working by herself have already resulted in an unlikely streaming hit, I Really Want to Stay at Your House, via the soundtrack of videogame Cyberpunk 2077, and have now bloomed into a full-length album that sparkles with the sense of what it is to have a good time.

This is the kind of 80s revival pop that seems to be slowly edging its way back into fashion, as it tends to cyclically; opener Heart to Heartbreak is a glittering paean to the freedom of single life and, like most of the songs here, is rooted in a killer hook. The poppier side of The Cure hangs heavy as an influence, especially on single Halfway Round the World, which  looks at love’s impermanence through the kind of sage lens only experience can provide; Walton is still only 26. The likes of Taking the Roof Down and Sorry Anyway, meanwhile, are altogether dancier.

As much as the record plays on the surface like a catchy sugar rush, there is reward in deeper listens; the granular attention to detail that defined Let’s Eat Grandma’s three albums remains present in the arrangements and instrumentation here. That band remain a (perennially underrated) going concern, but in the meantime, what a treat to hear Walton cast off some of their inherent heaviness in pursuit of something as fun as Tell Me It’s A Dream.

Listen to: Heart to Heartbreak, Sorry Anyway, Romance Is Dead On