Ten-lane super highways

Retreat From Moscow - In Search of Home
Long Lost Records

Retreat From Moscow (the project of Dubliner Stephen Tunney) sounds absolutely fully formed on debut In Search of Home. It's like opening a modeling kit and peering inside and seeing the airplane has already been assembled. There's acoustic and electric guitar parts that supplement one another, a finely tuned rhythm section, crisp lyrical narratives. I believe Tunney handles all the songwriting and all the instruments. He sounds like he's been playing and arranging for a lifetime, not a tiny, bite-sized portion of one.

In Search of Home calls to mind Oh, Inverted World or Saturday Looks Good to Me. Or even Sarah Records, the guitar pop authority on how to make hearts soar/sag/stop. On "Street Life," Tunney's thin, reedy voice transforms the chorus, "I can't live on the street where you live," into an act of total surrender. It's a decisive moment captured perfectly: He will not stand his ground against the one who spurned his advances but instead, fully retreat.

Tunney actually fizzes over on "With Uncertainty Comes Reassurance," peppering his lyrics with naughty words: "I don't give a fuck about your second or last regret." But even then, Tunney's anger sounds like it comes with its own thin, melancholic-coated shell. Like he's exasperated with this individual, but at the same time, torn up over letting their dissolution occur and even more torn up over realizing there's no chance of hitting the relationship rewind button.

(A completely unrelated side note to all this: On one of my various trips to Ireland—on this occasion, we were gamboling about Killarney—we took a cab to a golf course I have since forgotten the name of. During the ride, the cabbie told us about his recent vacation in Moscow and when asked what he thought of Mother Russia, he only wished to discuss the super highways entering the capital. "They have massive, 10-lane highways going into Moscow. Ten lanes on both sides. Ten going in and ten coming out. Massive. You wouldn't believe it." Part of me believes Stephen Tunney is this man.)