Breathless

★★★★ Between Happiness And Heartache TENOR VOSSA. DL/LP 30th anniversary pink vinyl edition of London quartet’s fourth and finest album.

There are voices suited to imparting bittersweet regret, and then there are voices that sound irredeemably bereaved, like Dominic Appleton. He ensures that Breathless have always veered much closer to heartache than happiness, just in case song titles like I Never Know Where You Are and Help Me Get Over It haven’t made it plain enough. Virtually a concept album about unrequited love, the record also chooses for its sole cover The Only Ones’ rarity Flowers Die (“I feel so helplessly alone, alone, alone, alone”). Appleton employs no masking metaphors, neither do his gorgeous melodies try to put on a brave face. That said, Between… is as liable to flex its muscles in a gothic, dreampop fashion as it is exposing delicate veins and broken hearts. Comes with a downloadable bonus track of 1992’s B-side Everything I See.