How I Long To Feel That Summer In My Heart

A testament to the influences of their youth; echoes of Lennon and McCartney, Simon and Garfunkel, Nick Drake, and Fairport Convention glide through the album before tiptoeing into a corner and reappearing a few tracks later.

How I Long to Feel That Summer in My Heart further underscores how brilliantly anomalous and unfashionably brilliant GZM are.

Their most affecting and cohesive statement to date. [Oct 2001, p.108]

It is a collection of whimsical neo-psychedelic folk songs of no little charm, but, crucially, little drama either.

Gorky's make the leap from ramshackle prog pop to meticulously crafted folk-symphonics. [Nov 2001, p.130]

Gorky's emotional punch is as heavy as it ever was--despite the bells and whistles. [Jan 2002, p.84]

There is a feeling of carefully constructed, mellow folk simplicity running through all these songs.

The ghosts of prog exorcised fully at last, Gorky's have once more put in a serious challenge to the Super Furries as Wales' most inventive band, and they've produced an album that, both in terms of its astounding quantum leap and its ambitious orchestration, swings excitingly near to the Delgados' genius breakthrough opus 'The Great Eastern'.

Although they don't quite hit the emotional peaks and valleys of some of the tracks on labelmates Mojave 3's last disc, they've got a similarly fetching combination of lush music, terrific voices and sad but hopeful songs.

There are no shocks or surprises, but instead, How I Long... thrills us softly, its tiny layers and details all intricately woven together into a cohesive and aesthetically delightful tapestry.

This is one striking album from start to finish.

Un-inspirationality aside, Gorky's still exhibits glimmers of sonic uniqueness and loads of pop craftsmanship throughout the record.

The aged authenticity of these songs comes so easily that you'd be forgiven for thinking that they discovered the formula.