The art of falling apart

At some point in the career of every band destined to tread the boards of arenas and festival stages, they have to write their great downbeat anthem.

Not quite a ballad, but something that stirs the romantic heartstrings. Swelling chords, plaintive vocals and tales of heartbreak, all building towards a chorus that thousands of people in a field will eventually belt out as though it’s the most life-affirming moment of their lives.

And perhaps it is.

Over Again could well be that moment for The Cases.

Of course, you can only really recognise these things in the rear-view mirror, once a song has developed a life of its own. Once it’s soundtracked a thousand bedroom heartbreaks, accompanied countless lonely journeys home and gradually transformed from somebody else’s story into something everybody feels belongs to them.

And The Cases certainly know a thing or two about heartache.

Their catalogue is littered with romantic misadventures. Being knocked back, losing love and watching somebody disappear into the sunset on the arm of some thoroughly undeserving rival.

Here, frontman Harry finds himself nursing another broken heart, alone again and wondering where it all went wrong. But beneath the melancholy lies something altogether more defiant.

He’s been knocked down before.

He’ll get up again.

And that’s where Over Again finds its emotional heart.

It’s also the sound of a band whose songwriting is maturing at an impressive rate. The boyish charm and irresistible guitar riffs remain, but their recent work, produced by Chris Taylor, has given everything room to breathe.

The guitars sound bigger, swelling to fill whatever space you care to give them. The vocals soar, Harry’s voice carrying all the bruised emotion of another romantic catastrophe, while the melodies reach towards something altogether more ambitious.

The Cases have always understood the power of a good chorus. Now they’re learning how to make the moments surrounding it matter just as much.

These are songs about love, loss and the peculiar human determination to keep putting ourselves through the whole ridiculous business all over again.

Burt Bacharach would understand.

And somewhere down the line, perhaps in a muddy field on a summer evening, thousands of people will be singing those words back at The Cases. Perched on strangers’ shoulders, arms raised to the sky, remembering their own heartbreaks and discovering that they were never quite as alone as they imagined.

For The Cases, that moment feels like only a matter of time.