The Arctic Flow - Lost You Long Ago (2021)

Lost You Long Ago finds South Carolina's The Arctic Flow in a lovelorn, wistful mood, finds Simon Heavisides.

Romantic longing: the emotional fallout may last a lifetime and can seep into your life in a way that makes it almost impossible to escape. Reappearing years later as a deep yearning for beauty and meaning, in fact maybe it’s just a manifestation of a profound desire to find a better world than the one you were born into?

Think the kind of doomed romance that is in the very fabric of those early Smiths songs. The Arctic Flow have that in spades but minus the grit and the grime.

Brian Hancheck has been the Arctic Flow since 2008, all that time journeying to what must be his natural home at Sunday Records. In many senses he’s the archetypal Sunday artist, lamenting lost innocence and seeking refuge in a pure version of indie-pop where melody is never sacrificed and the song reigns supreme.

Drifting in on a soft synth Rehearsals is a honeyed sliver of heart pumping urgency, recalling Wild Nothing circa Nocturne and with delicate hints of the Lotus Eaters softly ecstatic melancholy. All emphatically a good thing, deftly tugging at the heart strings in the way you know you love.