When it rains, it pours, and the deluge of new singles in the last little while made it so that even an epic new track from deary didn’t even get a listen until this morning as I write this, fully five days after it was released.

A tribute to guitarist Ben Easton’s dog – presumably named “Alfie” – it’s the penultimate track from their debut full-length Birding, which is due out April 3. It’s accompanied by a so retro it hurts video – Roller skating! Cassettes! Walkmen! Headphones with foam ear pads! – that makes me feel kinda funny because these are genuine artifacts from my youth, but I can’t begin to imagine what they mean to people half my age (give my take), like the band. Is it bewilderment? Novelty? Mockery? Apparently the word for this is anemoia. You learn something new every day

As for the song, describing it almost starts to feel like cliche – it shimmers! It builds! It floats! It soars! – but as much as it hearing it in adjectives feels like it should feel rote, particularly if you’ve spent your life immersed in their original influences, it still transports and transcends. Is it new? Is it original? I can’t say, but what is clear is that Birding will be one of my albums of the year. It’s nice to have that taken care of so early.