Daniel Angelus: ‘Wired for Heartbreak’ – a consistently exceptional album
Daniel Angelus has been performing in the UK and USA since 2007 and has earned reputation as both a solo artist and also briefly carrying London hit churners ‘Real Experts’ to new heights. Daniel has currently opened for Hot Chip in London and for T’Pau and Katrina and the Waves in Eastbourne. He released his debut album ‘Miracle Dark’ in August 2016, which was written and produced with writing partner David Emery. Angelus has now followed this up with his sophomore album, entitled ‘Wired for Heartbreak’, in February 2018. The recording features pulsing synths and a concept storyline about the relationship between a man and a woman light years apart. Fittingly, ‘Wired for Heartbreak’ serves as a wake-up call to music fans, as the album plays out much like a vivid movie in cinemascope, offering shimmering vignettes of a bleary-eyed, ethereal-voiced Daniel Angelus transporting us through the epic story.
Redolent not only with the kind of well-arranged emotion found in the album’s heartrending narratives, ‘Wired for Heartbreak’ is also evocative of light and dark itself, particularly as it pertains to the idea of communicating across time – with choruses marked by rich, sweeping instrumentation slowly breaking through the quieter, darker verses.
In fact, the tracks seems to play as an interpretation of the process of searching for tangible consciousness within expanses of space. Dreamily and drifting sonics often unfurl into something far more melodious, its drowsy soundscapes soon enlivened by colorful waves of grand, orchestral arrangements.
The album’s most poignant moments arrive when the narrator comes face to face with his own fragilities. One of ‘Wired for Heartbreak’s’ greatest triumphs is its peeling back the blasé, to reveal all the human anxieties and fears hidden beneath.
The album stands tall as a chronicle of its narrator left devastated by the depth of his own loneliness. Gorgeously rendered but still ponderously powerful, the album boasts a quiet strength that ultimately derives from the remarkable ability of its creator to deliver his grim reality with vibrancy and elegance.
The minute I heard “The Heartbreak of Goodbye”, I knew right away I’d be predisposed to like it: the droning, the gorgeously self-pitiful melody and layered harmonies, and the majestic orchestral arrangement that give the track a considerable heft and emotional muscle.
It establishes the dense, atmospheric territory we’re going to be spending time in here, as well as leads into the album’s other gem – “Show Me a Sign”. Angelus’ vocal performance on this track is stunningly convincing as it soars with glowing warmth and passion from verse to chorus. For all its desolate title, “Sadness” sounds as vibrant and dazzling as ever with its massive chorus.
Be it song complexity, thematic range, or emotional depth – this album exploits Daniel Angelus’ creativity to its fullest, to explore richer, more nuanced and melodic landscapes than ever before. Something he achieves on lushly layered tracks such as “This Can’t Be Real”, “Into The Wild Night”, and one of the best tracks on the album, “Back To The Memory”.
But you really couldn’t exclude any tracks from the list – the Depeche Mode-like banger, “Reflection”, and the mournful but ominous, “A Final Message To You”, being prime examples of this theory. “The Heartbreak of Goodbye” never sounds anything less than epic. Daniel Angelus’ voice, most often echoed and thickly layered, is omnipresent, binding and elevating this, his most consistently exceptional album thus far.
