Veronica Falls / Various

First released in 2011, "Veronica Falls" introduced a band with a deceptively simple proposition: take the sweetness, immediacy and melodic rush of classic pop and indie pop, then let something darker seep through the cracks. Across twelve songs, the London quartet of Roxanne Clifford, James Hoare, Marion Herbain and Patrick Doyle fused chiming guitars, ragged rhythms and beautifully intertwined vocals with songs about ghosts, doomed romance, death and dread. The result was an album that could sound euphoric and unsettling in the same breath, repeatedly finding light and darkness occupying the same space. It is music that invites you in with it's melodies before revealing it's shadows.The album remains a concise document of a band at a particularly distinctive moment: steeped in the lineage of The Velvet Underground, Beat Happening, Galaxie 500, Felt and 1960s pop, but with it's own wonderfully skewed take on their influences. Veronica Falls would go on to release a second album, "Waiting for Something to Happen," in 2013, before the members pursued separate musical paths and Patrick sadly passed in 2018.Now, fifteen years on, "Veronica Falls" returns as a reminder of just how potent that original formula was: beautiful, bruised, and instantly memorable. The anniversary reissue includes a bonus disc gathering nine recordings from the same period. Side C brings together five cover versions: the Rolling Stones' "Under My Thumb", Slumber Party's "Sooner Or Later", The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band's "Eighteen Is Over the Hill", Eurythmics' "Thorn in My Side" and The Verlaines' "Joed Out". Side D collects four B-sides from the band's early singles, rounding out a collection that reflects both the breadth of their influences and the distinctive sensibility that ran through their work.