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How Beautiful Life Can Be is the debut studio album by the English indie rock band The Lathums, released in September 2021 by record label Island Records. The album debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart on 1 October 2021,[1] but was overtaken by Tales from the Script: Greatest Hits, which reached number one on 8 October 2021.

How Beautiful Life Can Be
Studio album by The Lathums
Released	24 September 2021
Genre	Indie Rock, Soft Rock, Alternative Rock, Rock
Length	39:00
Label	Island Records

Background

At this point, the bands was playing gigs and releasing singles. They didn't have a studio album released under their name. Their producer, James Skelly, helped create this album, which contained some of their singles from 2019 and 2021. He also helped produce new songs that would appear on their debut album.

Alex Moore mentioned in an interview[2] on Radio X that during the lockdown, where they're were able to socially distance from one another, they started playing the song "Circles Of Faith", which they decided would be the opening track for their debut album. It was the first song recorded for How Beautiful Life Can Be.

Production

The title track, How Beautiful Life Can Be, originally came from a conversation between Alex Moore and his mother, during the COVID-19 lockdown. At first, Alex went upstairs to grab his guitar and start writing the song. He said to his mother to hold onto her thoughts for a minute, as he began writing the song. He took the things that his mother said, wrote them down and used them as a starting point for the lyrics.

Release

The album released in September 2021. Island Records released a "first edition" on CD, Vinyl and Cassette Tape, which contains demos and the original ideas of some tracks, like "Oh My Love", "The Great Escape" and "I See Your Ghost". A Deluxe edition was released, containing "Acoustic remixes" of all the tracks, except for the title track "How Beautiful Life Can Be". Instead, it contains an "Acapella remix". They also released an "Extended edition" released on Apple Music.

Track listing

Notes:

• Numa Numa Yey is a cover of the song Dragostea Din Tei by the Moldavian pop group, O-Zone. (This is only available on the 'Extended Edition' on Apple Music)

Personnel

• Alex Moore - Lead vocals, rhythm guitar
• Scott Concepcion - Lead guitar, backing vocals, piano (Only on Track 12)
• Johnny Cunliffe - Bass guitar
• Ryan Durrans - Drum kit

Reception

The album received some positive reviews. The NME gave the album four out of five stars stating, "It’s been quite a year for them during the pandemic."[3] The Guardian gave the three out of five stars stating that "Its retro sensibility and guileless tone means How Beautiful Life Can Be is the guitar music equivalent of comfort food: undemanding, slightly stupefying, but immensely cheering all the same".[4] The Metascore on Metacritic is 72%, with four positive reviews and two mixed reviews.[5]

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
The Guardian
Metacritic	72%
NME

References

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