Pretty Windows - Is This Normal Behaviour? (2025) Hi-Res

It’s never too late to realise your dream of releasing an LP, age is but a number in the man made construction of time. Even if it isn’t really. It’s the Sun and the Moon and the planets and all that shit. Leave that to Brian Cox and his massive brain.

You’re as old as you feel, and even if you feel 110 when you’re in your fifties or sixties it just means you’ve enjoyed or endured the half a century plus on this planet spinning through space and you’re still here to tell the tale. So fucking tell it.

Enter Pretty Windows.

This is as much a love letter to their home town Nottingham as it is to their past. Every song a snapshot of their life. Starting with ‘Zimmerman Standing’.

It opens with an ode to the legend that was Bob Dylan visiting the Castle on his way up to Sheffield in 1966. The lyrics describe sleeping on a friends floor on the very street Bob visited on that day nearly 60 years ago and seeing a picture of Robert Zimmerman such a short distance from where he was experiencing a traumatic period of his life. There’s an unmistakable debt to New Order in the keys and synthetic drums. The backing vocals encourage Human League comparison but Nick’s vocals are part David Byrne, part Shaun Ryder. The guitar does give out Johnny Marr in Electronic vibes.

‘Twelve Pink Plectrums’ harks back to their first bass when they were 16, and buying the pink plectrums they used to play it with, a permanent staple in the pockets of jeans, forever breaking washing machines. There’s a similarity to Primal Scream when they were going a bit industrial dance, with Black Grape grooves and backing vocals.

Pretty Windows are Nick Hutchinson, bass and vocals, and Steve Godfrey, on guitar, keyboards and programming. Formed in the lockdown silence, two friends who have been playing together forever had little else to do and discovered old samples, old lyrics and old ideas which sparked new ideas, new music, new songs.

‘Mad Jack’ tells the tale of the type of town and pub regular that makes a stop in many a hostelry and is a familiar face around town. There’s a sonar that’s a constant, following Jack around the song, around the town. They continue referencing the people in their lives, this time a sister, a rebellious, independent individual ‘Queen Punk Rock ‘.

‘Starsky and Hutch‘ is a childhood reminiscing. It sounds like a siren, it sounds like a sepia tinted look back. Not so rosey as it turns out.

‘Daffodils and Peace ‘ references visiting their Grandmother’s grave as a child, now there are so many familiar names, mortality comes and slaps you in the face.

‘1977’ starts harsh and spiky. Unsurprisingly when it’s about a traumatic year. Loss is primary. It sounds angry but also is ready to let go of the past and the pain.

This is a labour of love, the stamp that they always wanted to leave on the world, and then the world closed so they had the time to make it happen. Heartwarming stuff.