Four songs from 'BACK TO THE WORLD' recorded in French by Marc Denis in Toulouse, France

'Whereas his style and tone reflected a meeting of Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave in a dingy alleyway, armed with a jaundiced eye, irreverent wit and a bottle of whiskey, Meares has lassoed in an even more lush and exotic air, evoking the bleary-eyed ghost of Serge Gainsbourg, in his latest release. The result is magnificent. Slow burning, exotic and opulent: the songs bring to mind an air of excess and regret, indulgence and penitence and that languid air of Gainsbourgian richness with a dubious morality and a wicked glint in the eye. Of course when the source material is so brilliant, the delivery in French adds a gilded cloak and a sensual, exotic luminescence. ‘La Baie de Diament’ is a glorious indulgence that transports you to a Jean-Pierre Melville world with Alain Delon in his trench coat and a sound track from a supergroup fronted by Gainsbourg and Nick Cave. In invoking these images, Meares channels songs written by Leonard Cohen and played by Tindersticks. It’s a bacchanalian orgy of indulgence and pain that is ever so good'. - Arun Kendall, Backseat Mafia