Life sometimes throws pleasant surprises. More precisely, not life, but Spotify, of course, you can't expect it from life. But when you put on an album by a completely unknown band, and it envelops you in the most tender retro Britpop sound with vocals - well, like your Steven Patrick Morrissey in his best years... this, you know, is a moment. The one when you mentally thank the algorithm and go look up who these people are with the cumbersome name, faces of Norwegian pop idols, and a sound that by all accounts should have appeared in northern England some thirty years ago.

And it appeared three years ago in Chicago. In Chicago? Yes, in Chicago. Where there's snow, hot dogs, and Michael fucking Jordan. Eleven songs, thirty-eight minutes, not a single extra one. Vocalist Wes Leavins sings with that very signature melancholic grace that makes you want to both dance and look out the window at the rain. And this, mind you, is what we expected from the real Morrissey, but got Make-Up Is a Lie.

There are albums that sound as if they were recorded by people who knew exactly what to do. Irreversible sounds as if it was recorded by people who knew exactly what not to do. No polishing. No pompousness. No trying to be liked. The guitars ring with the right amount of dirt, the drums are live, Leavins' voice doesn't try to be bigger than it is - it already fills the entire available space. Retro without mothballs, nostalgia without masquerade. Everything breathes, everything spins. A rarity, honestly.

And finally, about the name. It turns out that young Leavins once had homework - to write a letter to some celebrity. He went ahead and wrote to Brigitte Bardot. And she went ahead and replied. A correspondence began between an American schoolboy and a legend of French cinema, in which she called him "baby." What a clever old lady. She sensed talent.

#listened