_____2009 saw the miraculous, questionable ascent of a new band that are now infecting some of the most prestigious music magazine covers around. Ok, NME is hardly prestigious, they have had some shocking bands on there before, Kasabian have snuck on there in the past and even the cast of Skins once. I think the editor, however, explained the former as a “severe, clinical error”, which would cost “a fair few jobs and at least one neck”… But this does not change the fact that The xx continue to grow more popular everyday, and yeah, Crystalised is a really cool song, but it does not merit almost daily status updates on Facebook popping up in my newsfeed shouting its exaggerated praises. Heart Skipped A Beat is better anyways…
___It gets under my skin because these guys aren’t on that cover because of their music, they’re there because they represent the fastest-growing fad since Furby’s. Art-faggery is worming its way into new-music. It’s the height of apathetic coolness, inspiring everyone to mindlessly rush with beaver-like eagerness to hop on and be seen on the Art-Fag-Band-wagon. Not me though, no no, I’m not going to fall victim to yet another media-driven craze. I’m like a metaphorical horse. You can bring me to the metaphorical water that is really nice artsy music, but you can not make me metaphorically drink and cave and admit that I love it. Because I’m not a metaphorical horse, I’m a metaphorical stubborn-ass mule. At least I was. Right up until I heard this…
_____I’m gonna have to hold my hands up here and say I dismissed their first album, Beat Pyramid, when I first heard it. I’m not sure why, I must have been in a foul mood, or suffering from some form of rectal irritation, because the first studio LP from These New Puritans is awesome. It’s nothing like The xx, except in that it is really quite good, drags on a bit, and also in that it makes me quite sad. Sad, not because their music is slightly depressing like the other lot, but sad because I didn’t hear about it until ridiculously recently. It’s rash, reckless, unrestrained, and it sounds so, so good. They’ve traded that in however on their second album, Hidden, for something quite different. And I once more initially disliked it, branding it two fluky pretty tracks in a collection of contemporary crap. That was initially though.
___As much as I hate the idea of trying to marry music with art, as painfully practiced by The xx, these guys have won me over. They’ve gone all deep and more-than-meaningful on it, almost the exact opposite of the Late Of The Pier levels of fun we heard on their debut album, but without sounding darshy in the process. It is am eloquent, artsy flavoured album that could not contrast more with the chaotic brilliance of their first, but that doesn’t mean anything’s changed on the awesome front. Far from it, as it happens.
___The English four-piece have delicately orchestrated ten tracks, and an unfortunate sub-standard intro, into my favourite album of the year so far. There’s powerfully dark tracks like Three Thousand and the choral Orion, but there’s also refreshingly bright sparks like White Chords, and the suitably poetry-referencing titled Drum Courts - Where Corals Lie. I think that’s essentially why I had no problem whatsoever loving this album, as opposed to the compliments I begrudgingly speak through gritted teeth of The xx, because it’s not just a fashionably dark album, nor is it just a happy-go-lucky mellow album, it’s a beautiful, authentic fusion of the two, and it all just works so smoothly. Like clockwork, or not sandpaper. It’s not all preciously polite and artsy though, Fire Power is a bit of a blast from their past in that it’s quite aggressive and upbeat, like much of Beat Pyramid, and there’s also the odd bad-ass track thrown in there too, Attack Music my personal favourite, but this is really what’s gonna be the irresistible lure for all those Konforming Kool Kats.
_____I would usually take this opportunity to forcefully predict that these guys, with their strange, almost-alien sound, will take 2010 by storm, their subtle yet seismic waves guaranteed to be picked up across the music-world, but to be honest, if Elvis alone didn’t earn their debut at the least a Mercury nomination, then I’m not prepared to risk having to eat my hat when Hidden almost inevitably doesn’t either. But I will give you my most sincerest of words that give this album a chance, as in actually listen to it more than once, and you’ll love it. And please, don’t just download We Want War, you wouldn’t go to the Louvre just to see the Mona Lisa now would you? What, you would? Well then I’m better than you cause I can appreciate art, and you, most probably, like trance music. Shnapp.
A2
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