Alice Costelloe opens Move On With The Year with Anywhere Else, and the tempo barely moves. Slow pulse, synths hanging in place, her voice arriving without urgency. She sounds calm. Too calm. Like someone repeating a story until the sharp edges wear down.
Costelloe played in Big Deal before this, then worked on solo material that leaned soft and synthetic. This time the sound shifts. Flute lines slip in and out. Recorder, organ, mellotron. Small choices that change how the songs feel without announcing themselves. Mike Lindsay’s production keeps everything warm and slightly blurred, analogue textures rubbing against drum machines and acoustic guitars. Nothing gets pushed too hard.
The songs deal with heavy stuff but they don’t make a show of it. An absent father, hospital calls, memories that keep coming back. She sings them plainly, no grand gestures. The emotion builds through repetition, through returning to the same phrases instead of resolving them. Her voice stays steady even when the lyrics don’t.
How Can I picks up the thread immediately. Motorik drums, a synth line that keeps moving while everything else feels suspended. The arrangement sounds almost buoyant, which makes the subject land harder. Birth, absence, distance already set in motion. Costelloe doesn’t accuse anyone. She observes. Compassion creeps in where anger would have been easier.
She puts uncomfortable lines inside pretty melodies without drawing attention to it. The music stays graceful even when the images aren’t. Tambourines rattle, woodwinds drift through, and nothing collapses under the weight.
Halfway through, Damned If You Do shifts the timeline forward. Weddings, adulthood, the quiet realization that certain expectations will never line up with reality. The arrangement opens slightly here, guitars sitting higher in the mix, rhythm more defined. She rarely lets the songs tip into release.
Of Course I Know is where that patience lands. Mellotron humming underneath, recorder cutting through the haze. The melody feels familiar without pointing to anything specific. Her vocal sits right at the centre, unforced, almost detached. She sounds like someone who’s already argued with herself about these memories and decided to stop fighting.
The album moves between decades of influence without settling. Sixties chamber pop touches in the arrangements. Seventies soft rock warmth. Nineties alternative textures hovering in the background, especially on Too Late Now, where the rhythm section leans into a slow, dreamy push that recalls Spiritualized without copying it. The references pass through without taking over.
Costelloe leans into imperfect instrumentation. The flute lines feel tentative in places, as if recorded before she fully mastered them. That uncertainty helps. The songs feel lived in rather than polished to death. You hear someone trusting instinct over precision.
If I Could Reach You arrives late and shifts the mood again. Catchier, lighter on its feet, but the sadness never disappears. You could dance to it. You might not realize why it feels heavy until later.
The closing Is There Something (Goodbye) doesn’t offer a clean ending. Darker tones, less warmth, the rhythm slowing as if the record is deliberately stepping away. No catharsis, just acceptance. The goodbye sounds final without pretending anything has been solved.
Costelloe’s writing avoids self-pity even when the subject invites it. She keeps looking outward, acknowledging that damage rarely starts or ends with one person. These songs sound like she’s already worked through them rather than working through them in real time. She’s handling the memories carefully, not putting them on display.
The sound is what sticks with you. How the arrangements give her voice room to breathe. How things move forward without rushing. Silence does some of the heavy lifting. Melodies repeat until they settle. Ten songs, no excess. A debut that knows exactly how much to say and when to stop.
Move On With The Year is out now via Moshi Moshi.
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