The third album from Sydney alternative rock band Gang Of Youths is largely about frontman Dave Le'aupepe's father, who passed away from cancer in 2018. After first wrapping up the unsuspecting listener with a series of solid songs - for which
The Killers would not be ashamed, for example - Le'aupepe gets to the heart of the matter in the piano song Brothers. 'We thought that he was only half Samoan,
… that his mother was a German Jew, but I went and found his birth certificate, and he lied about that too', he sings. He then goes on to make it clear that this lie was primarily motivated to improve the prospects for his family in Australia. Honest and poignant, just like the whole of Angel In Realtime. Le'aupepe turns his whole soul inside out and gradually wrings out a couple of strong songs, like The Man Himself. After an already long and arduous ride, that would have actually been a nice ending to an album that now - as the English so beautifully say - outstays its welcome. (RME)more
