You Tell Me

You Tell Me is an unpindownable record: familiar enough to sound comforting, but new enough to pique your interest and make you listen for the way forms have been taken and bent.

The brevity and strong melodicism of these songs is of course reminiscent of Field Music's work, yet You Tell Me feels like both an extension of the eldest Brewis brother's songwriting and an assertion of Hayes' voice.

Their voices have contrasting timbres and they produce some gorgeous harmonies throughout. [Feb 2019, p.87]

[The union] is clearly well-judged. [Feb 2019, p.37]

You Tell Me is probably at its peak when it leans further towards these pacey, pop-infused moments. However, the handful of tracks that stray into ballad territory are still often striking--not simply due to the musical intricacies that lie within them but because Hayes' vocals evoke strength and tenderness in equal measure, giving them some real emotional weight.

The languid pace that they lend to the majority of the songs here suits them just fine, but put up against the peppier numbers, you may long for a bit more variation. At the same time, You Tell Me concocts such a spell with their debut that the journey will still delight and intoxicate.

It will be interesting to see if You Tell Me is the start of something long-running or just a one-off. However it turns out, the album works as another argument in favor of the on-going genius of Peter Brewis and as an impressive introduction to the lovely music of Sarah Hayes.