Reviews
January 2012
quickly out of the blocks?
Attempt the impossible to improve your work.*
OK, last year was pretty bad, but are there hints already that 2012 is shaping up to be a better year? It is only January and already there have been some interesting releases. Maybe none of them are going to change your life, but they look to be steps in the right direction from young, hungry bands and that can only be promising. Perhaps we are just lacking a little more innovation; the bravery to throw yourself off the edge, to face down the impossible and laugh ...
The Maccabees - Given To The Wild
Fiction
Released: 9th January 2012
According to some sections of the media this is undoubtedly the album of the year which just about sums up how healthy they believe the music scene to be when they are prepared to give away the prize in the second week of January. Let’s face it, if there is really nobody else capable of challenging for that title then we all might as well go home and grow beans. Other critics are less convinced, regarding this is as the last throw of the dice for a ‘lightweight’ and ‘mid-ranking indie outfit’ who bend with every change in popular taste in order to find commercial acceptability. As Sussex boys, it would be brilliant to discover the Maccabees had truly struck gold, and they have certainly delivered a beautifully-crafted, thoughtful record, though whether it asks enough questions of the listener is the moot point. At its best, it is quite stunning: ‘Forever I’ve Known’ is gently uplifting and blends seamlessly into the softly probing ‘Heave’, but at its worst it can come across as too heavily airbrushed, and little more than easy listening. Intricate and unconscionably delicate, it certainly has the commercial appeal to be huge across all age groups, its all-embracing maturity perhaps its commercial strength and critical weakness. With the nicely downbeat ‘Pelican’ released as a single late last year, the livelier ‘Went Away’ is an obvious choice for a follow-up which could sweep everything from its path, though the emotive ‘Go’ would be a braver choice, an alternative epic which has enough shade to make it grimly touching. The driven ‘Unknown’ and spiralling ‘Slowly One’ lead the album towards a positive conclusion and the final track ‘Grew Up At Midnight’ builds slowly to a tumbling climax that almost rouses you from your slumbers. Arrggghhh. Yes, yes, it’s good, but it’s also bloody annoying. Half the time the record ends and if there’s been the slightest distraction you can’t remember if you’ve played it or not. It lacks a bit of fire, and blood and guts, but it’s fantastically played, intelligent, melodic and lyrically very strong. I like it. Sometimes I think I love it, and sometimes I think I hate it, so give it a spin and see if it registers in your life, it has to be worth the effort. Record of the year? I bloody hope not.
Pulled Apart By Horses - Tough Love
Transgressive
Released: 23rd January 2012
At the opposite end of the spectrum, if pleasant doesn’t do it for you then you may feel more at home with ear-exploding Leeds ruffians Pulled Apart By Horses. The band’s eponymous 2010 debut album was little more than a bewildering blast of hellish confusion and is now succeeded by Tough Love which is barely tamer, but certainly more focused, leaving behind the patchwork, cluster bomb construction of its predecessor in favour of a more coherent, megaton punch. This may well owe much to the calming influence of former Throwing Muses and Pixies producer Gil Norton, but the band must also take credit for reaping the rewards of ceaseless touring which has helped hone their approach. Indeed there are hints of the Pixies here, but only at their most extreme and only if they were simultaneously being bludgeoned to death with shards of broken guitars. In truth, this album is unrelenting and unbending. Coming in at just over half an hour and a thousand miles per hour, you’ll either lose your senses in its angry embrace or end up with an almighty headache. But it’s more than just noise; there are almost traceable melodies buried amongst the carnage. Hell, there are even harmonies and a teasing construction to some of the songs where the onslaught is suddenly lifted and some sunshine breaks through. ‘Wildfire, Smoke and Doom’ storms along with the usual menace until Deep Purple suddenly emerge for a brief interlude, while the lead single V.E.N.O.M., otherwise as straightforward a hardcore number as you could wish to hear, sees Black Sabbath make a guest appearance at the end. ‘Epic Myth’ is almost a slow number, ‘Give Me A Reason’ is pure metal with a recognisable guitar solo, but ‘Degeneration Game’ steals the show with its furious, see-sawing vocal assault. In fact the album gets better as it goes along with the final track ‘Everything Dipped In Gold’ employing some nicely droning and cutting guitars over a remarkable four minutes: what next, prog rock? If you like pretty, PABH are not for you, but if sometimes you need to clear your mind and embrace oblivion, well this can only help. Better still, go and see them live; PABH are a hard-working band and will no doubt be playing on your doorstep soon. This makes me smile and that’s no bad thing.
Tribes - Baby
Island
Released: 16th January 2012
Blimey, is it that late already? I hadn’t thought enough time had passed for a grunge revival, but here come four tramps out of Camden town managing to capture the spirit of an otherwise lost generation, sounding every bit like a British Flickerstick, with impossibly pretty melodies picking their way through grubbily crashing guitars and just about making it home. It’s all pretty familiar as well; Tribes certainly wear their influences on their sleeves, but, hey, this is a first album and that’s allowed. And if you have to tip a hat to the bands that inspired you, there are far worse they could have picked. Like the first Oasis album you wonder at the familiarity of it all, but have to admire how well it is done. There are tender moments here; genuinely reflective pieces such as ‘Corner Of An English Field’ that reveal a strong underlying intelligence, and there are moments of real promise when the band finds its own muse and these hit home all the harder. ‘Himalaya’ is an appropriately towering epic driven along by pounding rhythms and absolutely scalding guitars and offers a hint of future delights seldom found these days. OK, some tracks are alarmingly generic but when the band embarks upon the impossibly celebratory death-march of ‘Alone Or With Friends’ you know there’s going to be plenty more to come from these boys, an appetite-whetter of the first order. Ebullient despite its more reflective moments, effortlessly commercial and backed by the might of Island Records, this album could be big news. Hopefully the band will have time to find its own way, dip a toe or two in blacker waters and emerge with a second album of their very own before they get overtaken by the hype. If so, it could be something to treasure.
The Big Pink - Future This
4AD
Released: 16th January 2012
From a hopeful first album to an overdue second. The Big Pink’s debut album, 2009’s A Brief History Of Love, was a pleasingly dark affair, though apparently a little too sombre for the London duo who were looking to adopt more of a pop sensibility for this second release, inspired by Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, an album Robie Furze described as an ‘indie rock hip-hop record’. Drafting in Adele and Florence & The Machine producer Paul Epworth to help them achieve their goal, Future This is immediately more upbeat, opening with the joyous ‘Stay Gold’ which proclaims, ‘A time to laugh, a time to cry, and beat the darkness into light’, before zig-zagging along like a happier, noisier OMD. Good stuff. ‘Hit The Ground (Superman)’ carries on in a similar positive vein before ‘Give It Up’ steals the show, the closest thing here to straightforward pop song and one you feel even West may have been happy with, its gently looping beat carrying it along absorbingly as it delivers on all fronts. It’s not all highlights. ‘The Palace’ is a bit of a plodder and occasionally the incessant dum, dum, dum beats begin to grate and the limited vocal range makes too many songs sound the same. Where it succeeds best is when the music swerves off course and loses itself in indie mayhem. ‘1313’ is glorious, ending in worlds colliding, and a few more of the guitars that decorate ‘Lose Your Mind’ would be no bad thing. Bands should look to progress and with this huge step sideways The Big Pink show they are not content to rest on their laurels. Future This is an impressive piece of indie electronica, and where the band will tread next will be well worth finding out.
Howler - America Give Up
Rough Trade
Released: 16th January 2012
Another debut, this time from across the water, with the band hailing from Minneapolis, apparently America’s third-most literate city. There’s nothing particularly erudite about Howler’s approach to their music, however; they were hailed as the NME’s third best new band of 2011 with the paper praising them for being different only in making ‘commonplace components fly with a brilliant nonchalance.’ So don’t expect anything innovative here, but you can wallow in a mess of guitars, explosive songs mostly under three minutes with plenty of nice hooks, and bags of attitude. The good thing is you get the impression the band wasn’t really trying that hard, quite an achievement. It’s not difficult to unearth the influences here; Howler embrace the more primitive approach to rock ‘n’ roll and glimpses of the Ramones and the Cramps emerge from time to time, with the bare garage sounds of the Strokes a constant presence. These are early days and Howler will no doubt find their own voice in the years to come and leave invidious comparisons behind, but you can’t help but smile at ‘Back To The Grave’, nicked piecemeal from the Mary Chain’s ‘A Taste Of Cindy’, which leads into the Strokes-by-numbers ‘This One’s Different’ and ‘America’. This is youthful homage rather than cynical plagiarism and is all the more endearing for that. If it had been released at the turn of the century America Give Up would have stolen the limelight; as it is in 2012 it is a pleasant reminder of what boys with guitars can do if they have been brought up properly. Not essential, but on the way.
*Bette Davis
Top photo www.pulledapartbyhorses.com
February 2012 Reviews
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