Last week, Brighton-based indie quartet Nature TV released their stunning third EP Heartache Skyline, follow up to 2019’s debut Emotion Sickness and 2020’s Lady Luck. Nature TV is a group whose music has personally brought me so much peace and comfort over the past few months; their soft, often jazz-inspired instrumentals and detailed, poetic narratives feel almost cerebral at times, filling all the crevices of a strained, weary heart. There are truly few bands that sound as gorgeously seamless and complete as Nature TV does – fronted by Guy Bangham’s smooth, ardent vocals, their songs touch on internal strife, lovesickness, and everything else in between with finesse;like a spoonful of sugar, their music makes even the most painful emotions just a bit easier to stomach.
“Loopholes,” perhaps our favorite track from Heartache Skyline, has a sweet, yet melancholic air about it, evoking the complex feeling of coming home after a long day, throwing the window open, and feeling the breeze wafting through while overthinking about everything you said, everything you did, and, most importantly, everything you missed out on, the aura of resignation settling into your soul like moonlight. Bangham asks a nameless figure “close the window, baby/ I don’t think I’ll get no sleep/ I hear the city breathing/ better than it ought to be,” yearning for something abstract and nameless. Backed by moody guitar, his vocals become emboldened at the chorus, lamenting “for the first time/ I’ve really tried to see a loophole, baby/ but they’re all closed to me.”