Even by their prolific standards, Mica Levi has been busy. We’d barely had time to regain our breath after the surprise return of Good Sad Happy Bad, a reshuffled and renamed Micachu & The Shapes back to save the latter part of 2020, before Levi served up a shock solo album called Ruff Dog.

On reflection, it would have been difficult to predict what a new release from the band would sound like, if ever arrive at all. Five years had passed, and Levi appeared solely focused on their blossoming soundtrack career – did they, and we, even need a new record?

Shades, the collective’s fifth, will make you grateful they reconvened. Awash with swirling guitars and woozy dream-pop melodies, new lead vocalist Raisa Khan effortlessly grounds tracks, even as the intensity grows through the album’s latter half.

Simply hypnotic, ‘Star’ radiates the same warm glow that Khan’s speaks of in the song’s chorus - “You feel like the sun, whenever I need some” – while ‘Honey’ resembles early, woozier Blur and utilises a call and response chorus that will rattle around your head for days. Grunge-tinged ‘This Skin’ and ‘Reaching’ crank up the beefy guitars and ‘Universal’ brings the curtain down like an unstoppable runaway train, crashing percussion underpinned by saxophone shrieks.

The perfect lockdown accompaniment, Shades provides comfort and resilience in equal measure across its 40-minute running time. With any luck, 2021 will provide more Mica Levi to keep our spirits up and we won’t have to wait another five years for a Good Sad Happy Bad record. Let’s face it; we deserve it after the year we’ve had.

Artist. Good Sad Happy Bad

Title. Shades

Format: CD / Vinyl 12”

Label: Textile Records

Cat. No: T28