Real Deal

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  2024 Top 20

  Adam Wood

  Here’s a record, the arrival of which in late September proved to be one of the most disruptive events of the year with respect to this list.

  Opener ‘Hide’ matches Anouska Sokolow’s easy vocal with a mix of guitar stabs and the subtlest of ethereal synths. It’s the first in a series of superb, authentic repurposings of 80s and 90s sounds. Where tracks like ‘Pretty Girls’ and ‘Real Deal’ harken back to the mid-90s slacker rock of Pavement, it’s Sokolow’s voice that elevates them to something new-feeling. Likewise on the sad, coy, Smiths-adjacent ‘Ghost’. With ‘Safety Pin’, the mix of demure lyrics and increasingly-strident melody is reminiscent of Placebo’s Without You I’m Nothing (1998).

  The record also has plenty of its own signature moments, of which the melody switch at ~2:20 on closer ‘Movies’, and the ratcheting up of vocal tension to a breaking point at ~1:35 on ‘Don’t’, are the first two of several to come to mind.

  Real Deal was a record that I found to be enormously rewarding on repeat listens, always disclosing another texture in its tapestry. Where I’ve listed influences above, the real marvel of Honeyglaze’s second LP is in making them feel fresh and alive. I listened to a lot of records in 2024, and very few delighted me as much as this one.