Single Review: Our Parents Fixed It All

With the beguiling This Was Our Fault EP and the bitter-sweetness of Flowers still lingering, Echo Children are proving as alluring as they are elusive to define on their latest single, Our Parents Fixed It All.

That might be because of the melting pot of nationalities – Amanda Larsson (Sweden), Niamh O’Flynn (Canada) and Oliver Young (Scotland) – that gives them such a sense of other-worldiness, beautifully infused in songs that sparkle like rare pop gems tinged with the earthiness of country and folk.

A lazy guitar melody introduces what is essentially a thoughtful double-edged lyric line – on the one hand it evokes,  in imagery,  a sense of gratitude for what has been inherited but there’s also a darker hint in Young’s sharp but slightly lingering delivery that suggests that appearances can be deceptive.

Each generation inherits and has to fix the problems of the generations that came before them. That presupposes we haven’t run out of options and there is time available.   

The pause-for-thought nature of the chorus – “And we made it to the top and landed the summit on our very first shot not bad for the new bunch of kids on the block, we were born with the luckiest, born with the luckiest lot” – is topped off with some alluring vocal harmonies.

Whatever the lyrics conjure up for each individual, Our Parents Fixed It All, has the kind of ‘pulling power’ that the sirens of mythology used.   It’s open to interpretation whether that’s towards destruction or renewal.