Released on Too Pure, “Love Your Sons & Daughters” finds Aberyswyth's finest garage export The Keys distilling their appeal into three tightly wound tracks that balance bruising guitar force with an unexpectedly open heart. The title song surges in on a cool sixties guitar, quickly settling into a driving pulse that never quite loosens its grip. There’s a ragged uplift to the melody — a chorus that tells you of so many tears and so many fears — and the vocal sits right on that fault line between tenderness and abrasion. I'm digging the organ solo! The whole song is hooky without being clean, anthemic without ever sounding safe.
The B-side sounds almost of demo quality, but still deepens the picture rather than merely padding it out. “Good As Glue” shifts from outward sweep to inward pressure, built around a thick, slightly trippy psychedelic background that scrapes and snags instead of soaring. Where the A-side pushes forward, this track feels stuck in place — deliberately so — exploring attachment as something adhesive and faintly suffocating. The chorus doesn’t explode; it tightens, pulling everything closer together until the tension itself becomes the hook. It’s a wiry, claustrophobic piece of mushroom influence that rewards repeat listens, revealing sly melodic turns beneath the surface abrasion.
“Echinacea,” by contrast, acts as an acoustic comedown and a quiet aftershock. Named after the herbal remedy, it drifts rather than drives, trading psychedelic swirls for hazier textures by acoustic guitars and a slower, almost narcotic groove. The vocals harmoniously recede into the mix, sounding distant and private, as if overheard in a bar rather than performed. Instead of building toward release, the song gently dissipates, leaving behind a residue of melancholy calm. It’s the most fragile moment on the single, and arguably the most revealing, showing the band’s ability to generate atmosphere without abandoning intensity.
Taken as a whole, the record feels less like a traditional single and more like a miniature emotional arc: a surge of communal feeling, a knot of dependency, and a muted recovery. What stands out is the absence of irony. “Love Your Sons & Daughters” may not polish its emotions into radio sheen, but that’s precisely its strength — it burns, wobbles, and finally exhales, leaving the impression of a band far more nuanced than a single blast of guitar noise might suggest.
