Lighthouse Family – “Blue Sky In Your Head”
Thank The Lord for small mercies. Tunde Baiyewu and Paul Tucker – the Lighthouse Family – are back after sixteen years ‘away’ with their first new music and their first studio album for eighteen years! Hearing Tunde’s voice is like sitting back in your favourite chair and takes you all the way back nearly twenty five years to classic hits like “Lifted” and smooth, gorgeous numbers like “Ocean Drive” or “Goodbye Heartbreak”. The boys returned earlier this year with the single “My Salvation“, which is the second track on this ‘epic’ 23 track album!
The album opens with the title song and it’s so instantly recognisable like that familiar chair you can sink into and escape from everything that surrounds you. With a light orchestral backing, the song is uplifting and makes you think with lyrics like “we could live a different life where the trouble just goes away”. “My Salvation“, as mentioned, was the first single and follows suit with a clear message set against a torrid of guitars and strings. We are all striving to find our salvation and this song offers hope and comfort to anyone who finds themselves in that predicament.
If you want “Lifted”-esque numbers then look no further. “Live Again” and “Waterloo Street” are the tracks you need to select, while “Super 8” could easily be the second part of “Ocean Drive”. The tender and beautiful “Light On” vies for the prize as standout track of the album, but has stiff competition from the melting “Under Your Wings” and the sublime “The Streetlights And The Rain” which has an early 60’s flare about it. “I’m just trying to get back to our glory days” sings Tunde on “Who’s Gonna Save Me Now?” and in doing so, achieves exactly that. As with all great Lighthouse Family songs, this track builds and builds and takes you along for the ride with it.
There are some great funky, fun numbers on this album, “The Long Goodbye” and “Put My Heart On You” are two standouts, the latter enthused with electro beats and synths. The album closes with the near five and a half minute epic “Immortal”, with its haunting lyrics and gorgeous strings, the album comes full circle, back to where we started and you realise how well the arrangement flows and blends, another perfection of this duo. We may have had a long wait between albums, but this is one of the reasons why track harmony and order are so essential. It can either kiss or kill a record.
“Blue Sky In Your Head” is bolstered with a number of hits just to remind you of who the Lighthouse Family are. All of the big ones are featured from “High” to “Raincloud” and “Free”, but it’s the thirteen new songs that are the stars here, each one of them wrapped in magic full of 101% Lighthouse Family ingredients that we’ve all come to expect. It’s like having a check list in your head and every one of them has a tick against them. “Blue Sky In Your Head” is refreshing and timeless and such a welcome. The album represents a huge comeback to this duo who have such a great and solidly successful past. “Blue Sky In Your Head” seals their entry into the 2010’s and beyond with understated glory. Brilliant.
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