Pleasant Flow’s ‘Better Luck Next Time’ was inspired by long nights spent in the nightlife of Helsinki, which I’ve heard is pretty lively.
But liveliness comes with its downsides and one of them is alienation. As they say, partying and escapism often blur into each other. As a veteran of Manchester’s Hacienda Club in the 1990s (by which I mean one night, that was enough for me!) I know how they feel.
There is a point in the second chorus of the song where I thought it might be the closure of the venue where they hung out that might be the issue
But it digs deeper than that to paint a picture of the rite of passage that most teenagers go through when they attach themselves to an edifice of contemporary fashion for a while, one they obsess over and with the diligence that suggests that they’ve found their calling for life. Only to be prised away from it by the call of work, family, or even military service, which they have to do in Finland.
And when you eventually return, often much later than you thought you would, it is never the same. Papillon’s Montmartre had changed so much he could barely recognise it and wished he had never made one final trip to see it. The Hacienda is a block of flats.
“For a moment, everybody knew the name of our band/Baby, it was easy, but I just don’t understand/What happened then/’Cause the moment, it was over like it never was…”)
Perhaps I’m reading too much into it but that’s how it comes across to me. The Last Rites for that rite of passage.
Musically, it’s undemanding. Based loosely on a three chord structure by the sound of it but the melody sticks like glue and it’s enlivened by a neat little guitar bridge. And they rock.
Pleasant Flow remind me of Norway’s Sløtface, and in that bridge of Trembling Bells, and accolades don’t come higher than that in both cases.
I thought I might struggle to find a smartass way of repeating the song title in the closing remark but it would be superfluous to requirements.
Pleasant Flow is in the here and now; they don’t need better luck next time.
Find them on:
Website: https://pleasantflow.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pleasantflow
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Flowpunavuori
