The Lilac Time

Listening to the Lilac Time is like whiling away a sunny Saturday afternoon walking through fields with a young girl and an old, shaggy dog. Sure, there are more "important" things to do, but that doesn't mean that life offers better things to do. Led by ace songwriter Stephen Duffy, the Lilac Time ruled the British critics' polls throughout the late '80s and early '90s without ever making a serious dent in the charts. Their mixture of Beatles harmonies and shimmering Folk Pop guitars with countrified banjos and pedal steel instrumentation fit perfectly into songs about catching trains and missing opportunities. Named after a Nick Drake lyric, they were ahead of the current "quiet is the new loud" retro sound curve by a decade. If you were too busy listening to Grunge during the band's glory days, you've been given another chance to discover great pop music. The Lilac Time have reformed and the brilliant Looking For a Day in the Night, found them in an even more pastoral and introspective mood than before. Lilac6 keeps the folk feeling but brings back some electric guitar crunch. The world needs more songs about public transportation, rainy days, and romantic regret; hopefully the Lilac Time will always be around to provide them for us.