Rock Stone’s new album ‘Always Kisses’ is largely the work of Adam Stone; a self confessed ‘hopeless romantic’ who makes prolific, heart on the (plaid) sleeve bedsit-pop. His full-length debut, ‘Always Kisses’, never veers from Stone’s bittersweet segments of love and the latter being “like getting punched in the mouth”. With ‘Cotton Candy’, Stone and his band reveal a prominent fuzz-pop opener; like a teen Dinosaur Jr covering Jonathan Richman on a two-dime budget, whilst ‘Always Kisses’ finds them cruising a Cadillac down plaid-pop Highway (stopping off at Pixie Services for backing vocals and refreshments). It’s never the white-knuckle volume assault led by many of their peers, and as downbeat country of ‘Never Let Go’ draws to a close, you get the sense they’ll have a few more striking, folk-tinged bows to fire toward your heart, but for now it’s fuzzness as usual.
