I find it staggering that it’s a whole 9 years since we covered Young Fathers’ debut Dead on the pre-podcast Blog days. In fact, it feels like a different lifetime, like so much before 2020 does. And yet almost a decade on, once I saw Heavy Heavy was dropping into my podcast slot, it didn’t seem like any other album would get a look in. But as soon as I picked it, I had to ask myself: just how much Young Fathers have you really listened to in the last few years? What do you know about them? Because it’s funny how much you like an artist or act and realise that outside those headphones you couldn’t even name them all.
The answer wasn’t quite as embarrassing as I’d quite feared, but it was much more odd tracks over supporting whole albums, which suddenly felt like I’d missed one of the most fascinating bands around completely. This thought would solidify over the next few weeks until it felt like a millstone. Despite this, one of the big reasons I’d chosen Heavy Heavy was just how much I’d loved the initial singles that appeared over the past 9 months. Geronimo arrived in July last year and as well as listening to it regularly, Spotify seemed to want to push it in my direction, something that puzzled me, (and there’s a wider discussion on the algorithm to be had later on). It made my end of year long list in 2022, with its quiet whispers sitting atop a brass-driven motif, before the discordant harmonies drew me in as it broke into song. A song, on its own, unwrapping the mystery of Young Fathers’ own kaleidoscopic sound and unique character in one, three-and-a-half minute epic.
Three more singles followed, in that strange streaming-era way that means you know a big chunk of most albums before they land, and each was different in its own brilliant way, from the bleak beauty of I Saw, evoking discarded immigrants (perhaps?) or – according to the band (from a recent Guardian interview) about how we all watched Brexit unfold and did, well, nothing. One song, many meanings. Follow-ups came from across the music spectrum: Tell Somebody’s swelling, orchestral lament and Rice’s loose, percussive chorus of voices. Of course, in isolation they felt like four great singles, but somewhat disconnected. But then, that’s how Young Fathers operate. Nothing is (as in Rice, the album’s opener) ‘in an orderly fashion’. They thrive on genre-bending records, jumping between styles even within a single chorus. But then, when it’s part of a whole, it all seems to fall into place.
Once thing I knew we’d get in comparison to some of the longer recent albums was brevity, focus and power. Heavy Heavy came in at 32 minutes, across ten songs. Heaven. Joey would have to get back through at least track 2 before his 39 minute walk ended! While not every album has to be 3 minute songs, this feels like a definite follow-on from their last album, 2018’s Cocoa Sugar, which saw the band make their most structured record to date, with its leaning on pop songs’ formula even as they retained their own badge. But where Cocoa Sugar was as restrained as Young Fathers get (and that word is doing a lot of heavy lifting here), Heavy Heavy has, for me, much higher highs and lower lows, musically and thematically.
Like all the best records it flies by: I’ve put it on twice many times already. But unlike some records which slip by almost unnoticed, this never fails to take the attention. In a music landscape of often rigidity – though lord knows there’s more than enough amazing music around – Young Fathers’ glorious m.o. of disregarding expectation and just letting rip – both softly and abrasively – is what marks them apart and frankly should have them even more lauded than their Mercury Prize-winning reputation deserves. I’ve listened to this album a lot, and while I have loved its sheer inventiveness, its vigour, its ability to slip between so many different colours on the spectrum, for a long while I struggled to work out how it made me feel.
Because we are all about the feels. And as I marvelled at Drum’s energy and uplifting falsetto, or Shoot Me Down’s chopped up samples dissolving into a weighty chant, or Ululation’s tribal wailing, it took me ages to land on what it meant. But now I’m there. It’s just JOY. The energy, the life that comes from this record, the way it lifts me up, you stand in its brilliant glare, absorbed, and then 30 minutes later, it’s gone. And I will sit there with a grin on my face, not sure what I’ve just listened to, what it may mean, but that I have experienced something pure. And that’s hard to pin down, and across their albums while the meaning may be elusive, even as Be Your Lady’s piano explodes into feedback, noise and a slew of vocals, I know that I am alive.
So – if we are to try while appraising this brilliant album – what the hell are Young Fathers? Song to song, it may be possible to divine something approaching genre. But nothing is certain from track to track, but it ends up feeling like it was all meant to be together. I can’t think of anyone else that really does this, though I will return to my favourite reference point: Genesis Owusu. I know we did this in reverse too, but I am now wondering how much Young Fathers he listened to? Because while Owusu has more funk and soul, courtesy of his tight musical collective, there is so much to see parallel here. But if its frustrating (not to me) for some to try and work out what this band is, it seems the music press, and platforms don’t seem to know either. People think they’re hip-hop (nope), noise (sometimes), rock (honestly). To me they are exploring the outer edges of pop music. It may not sound like a lot of pop you know, but it’s 3 minute songs, with song structure, and a group that really wants to push things to the limit, but they have a world and it’s very much their own. Even if no one can categorise it, who cares? Radio stations can’t even work out if they play them.
There is also a tangential link to Episode 30’s Rozi Plain album, Prize. While it may seem incongruous, the lyrical metaphor and opacity of Heavy Heavy leaves you searching for your own answers, as some of the best music only manages. Is Rice about slavery? Racism? Is Tell Somebody about mental health? Joy? Pain? It isn’t clear, but perhaps like last month’s album, it doesn’t really matter. Young Fathers are often elusive about their meanings, but if it works, it works? It’s refreshing not just to need to work to unpick lyrics, but to not still be sure 25 listens in.
I have also spent some time again with Dead, and their other two albums, 2015’s White Men Are Black Men Too, and the aforementioned Cocoa Sugar, and they have been every bit as fantastic as the first and newest were. Dead was – running to it last weekend – way more familiar than I’d have thought it would be. Music really does still have that ability to transport you to a time and place. For Dead, I’m not 100% sure what I was doing in 2014 when the album came out in February – probably being seasonably dismal – but an album that I remember felt way out of my comfort zone at the time, but nonetheless memorable, felt at turns familiar and also fresh. Get Up in particular, leapt out, its off-key drone still sounding really new, angry, edgy and vital. It’s a rare feat managing that after so long, but perhaps the genre-hopping/avoiding music they make means this is all the more possible. Through the albums, as a whole lineage – and I listened to all 4 in a row one Sunday – they feel so cohesive together, all this big universe that they have made their own. In a post-genre world, how does a band like Young Fathers fit in?
Finally, there’s the videos, shot almost all in non-widescreen, another incongruous but seemingly bold statement in a pushback against the general music ‘machine’. They are striking, from older ones such as Low’s washed-out colours, or the visual attack of Shame to the new album’s visceral I Saw or Tell Somebody, to the dry humour of Toy’s casting of children as leaders, despots and maniacs. As their music does, the visual medium shows us just how vibrant and full of ideas they are, making things they want, the way they want. And we can all celebrate that.
We are big big Little Simz fans here at TINH, and while we were mixed with our view of Sometimes I Might Be Introvert (S.I.M.B.I.) – for me, it was a brilliant record, somewhat let down by the strange skits from Emma Corrin / Lady Di in the Crown – we all adored Grey Area for its energy, power and sheer do-not-give-a-fuck attitude (not to mention amazing flow and vibe).
And as we all got to thinking about our 2022 Top Tens, here landed No Thank You, on 12 December, to land in that strange slot of after end of year lists, but not in 2023, hence a sort of hinterland. But my god, it doesn’t really matter, because it’s an amazing work. Much more personal, and pared back than the maximal feel of SIMBI, this sees Simz and her producer, Inflo, in perfect harmony. Gorilla may be one of my tracks of the year as a late entry, and if it came out in November, it would’ve likely been in my Top 5, straight in!
It’s great to have her back, but perhaps next time, release on 2nd Jan?
I loved this ‘track’ idea when we heard it. I thought I’d have TONS of ideas. So many, that I didn’t really think about it until about 2 weeks ago, while on holiday, and realised I had no bloody idea what to do. Was it entrance to a boxing ring? The start of a film? All the tracks that first came to mind were for the end of a film (‘roll credits’) and that wasn’t the brief, though perhaps a great new one.
Then, I didn’t really feel I was doing anything original. I had a playlist/mood board, but it didn’t really say much about why or what it meant to me other than ‘wicked track’. Then I read David’s post and realised you could really run away with it. And here we are. One of my favourite tracks, yes, and possibly not as original as either Joey or David’s, but the idea came to me very quickly once I listened to it. And while there’s a bit of disconnect between the song (and its release) and my ‘entrance’, it all fits.
So, here’s my scene. Sit back, and enjoy.
[Warning: Artistic licence and a time machine required]
Location: an English boarding school in the late 80s.
Kids sitting glumly in monochrome in their form room, doing more dreary homework. Not a sound. Heads down. Too many detentions lately. Not long to bed time. Another grey day in middle class, middle England. Until….
In come the 6th formers. Bored and irritated, with some imperceptible slight. It’s time to pick on whoever’s in front of them, and in this case it’s the nerds. Always the nerds. This time it’s the 2nd years, minding their own business. But here they come, all rolled up sleeves, small-knotted ties and wispy facial hair, kings of the world, at least in their own mind. And ready for another shitkicking of whoever, because these lads are in the first XI, and nothing ever happens to them. Think the classic high school movie cliche, jocks v nerds, except extract all the US glamour, sunny climate, and general colour and mix in a tablespoon of English uptightness, a few drips of angst and the whiff of educational institutionalism and it’s about to kick off, in the most one-sided of ways.
The 2nd years are fed up. They’ve seen this movie too. There’s never a reason for a shoeing other than ‘why not’? And if they’re lucky, they’ll just get their homework spat on, chucked in the bin or their tie pulled tight so they can’t undo it. At worst, bumps, bruises, or perhaps even a broken bone, ready to be covered up with a chat to the parents from the headmaster because ‘we can’t harm our glorious (not very good) reputation’.
First a push, then someone’s dragged out of a cubicle. There’s a smirk, and the gang spreads out. Time slows down. The inevitable awaits….
BUT WAIT. One cubicle is empty. No one notices. Until now. Cue music…. Revenge is finally to be exacted.
[Sound of loud music: Beastie Boys: Sabotage]
Switch to HD. Turn up the colour. Crank up the volume. The guitar kicks in. In walks the kid that has taken enough and isn’t going to take any more. Slow-mo as the first punch lands on that entitled, smug jaw. Out cold. Everyone turns, facing their target. A lucky punch, they think, he’s toast. But it’s just the beginning.
[Sabotage continues, vocals kick in],
Like a mix of Bruce Lee’s grace and power, Arnie’s muscle and Eddie Murphy’s cool, each attacker is repelled with a mix of roundhouses, blocks, jabs. one-inch punches, in slow-mo glory, taking down the older boys that have had this coming for 5 years, treating everyone lower than them like vermin because they’ve spent their lives being told that they’re alpha males who’ll never get their desserts (and yes, they’ll all still on to to be bankers and management consultants, divorced by 35 with a head full of regret and a cocaine problem, enjoy that) but this is the day of the fightback.
In they pile to the lone fighter: 6th formers, 5ths, until the scene resembles a cartoon dust cloud with limbs flying, until a lull
[Sabotage hits 1:37. and as the melody kicks back in]
A hail of bodies fly outwards like an explosion, through windows, walls, doors, until only the hero is left standing, surrounded by his classmates, mouths agape.
He surveys the scene, no movement, brushes dust of his shoulder, and walks out into the sunshine, as the track dies out.
[END]
There you go. Let’s call it long wished-for revenge, and leave it at that.
For anyone that’s ever seen me at a Hot Chip gig (yes, even that one) and just how excited I get by that band, it’s probably about as much of a surprise as hearing I picked Metronomy’s Small World for Episode 21. But however much Hot Chip’s 8th studio album, Freakout/Release, felt like an obvious pick for me, it’s not the slamdunk that it might seem. For starters, it presented me with a quandry for the podcast: I’m an unashamed Hot Chip nerd, a lover of the band since their first album in 2004, so how objective could I be and frame this as a discussion that gave the subject its due without letting personal feelings overbear it? Also, there were other choices in play, not least the amazing Cheat Codes from pod favourites Dangermouse and Black Thought. It’s such a dazzling album with all the vintage feels, oddball samples galore, and conscious, layered flow (not to mention some amazing guests) that it’s a 2022 Top 10 shoe-in. But does anyone want to listen to 4 guys agreeing how good something is for an hour? I wasn’t so sure.
So Hot Chip wasn’t just a lazy pick, and the more I listened, the more it raised a lot of questions that are relevant to my music DNA, and why we do the podcast: how we grow up with bands (and them with us), how artists develop over the years, how and why we connect with them and the effects on music of the inevitable march of time. After all, when I’ve listened to every one of the band’s albums dozens and dozens of times (and for this album, all 8 in one day, just for research purposes!) and seen them tour every one of them since The Warning, I am probably reasonably qualified to consider those questions. To me there’s been subtle but noticeable changes in tone and lyrics that bring me back to those queries each time. For me – if we’re putting it out there – there’s 3 ‘acts’ of Hot Chip: the spiky, jolting first two albums, then an almost impeccable run from Made In The Dark, via One Life Stand, to In Our Heads, and then further shift from Why Make Sense? to the current day. From oddball nerds (a press label as much as anything, and one they probably hate) to underground darlings to a British institution with a dedicated global following. All of this despite only one UK top 10 single (Ready For The Floor) and album (Made In the Dark). Enter their first new album in 3 years, do things feel different? It’s a cliché to say lots has changed since their previous album, A Bath Full Of Ecstacy, arrived, but lockdown and the pandemic has put an indelible mark on society, so it’s not a surprise to hear the band talk about its influence on Freakout/Release and how that made them strive to search for a sound that they wanted to play live.
I probably should admit there’s part of me that connected with the band back in the mid-00s as I saw them as not trying to be cool, just doing their thing, looking like a strange collection of ‘guys with synths’ and making some amazing music, but without any real ego. I was never (am never, will never be) one of the cool kids, a perennial fan of music, DJs, art, clubs, gigs, festivals that wanted to get on the inside but was always peering (metaphorically and literally, sometimes) over the fence at the action, trying to get behind the rope. Hot Chip were one of the first bands I’d seen that looked both totally normal but also really cool, but much more like me and people we knew. I doubt they liked the ‘nerd’ tag (who would?) but against all of that, managed to cultivate a furrow that was very much their own, musically and beyond. Yes, they’ve done themes and colourschemes for some tours and albums, but a lot they’ve done just by being themselves. And how can you not be cool by playing every festival out there, DJing in all the good clubs, and seemingly getting to do it your way throughout? It’s the dream, right? (and disclosure, I’ve meet a few of them in a musical and fan capacity, and guess what? They’re lovely, sound people, so do meet your heroes, at least sometimes).
So what do we know about the album? Like its predecessor, it’s an album where the Alexis Taylor, Joe Goddard, Al Doyle, Felix Martin and Owen Clarke have allowed external producers into the inner sanctum, and like A Bath Full, it’s yielded interesting results that aren’t always visible at first glance. While Bath Full was lauded as positive statement on connection, joy and music’s ability to foster both of these things, (with the late Cassius and production wizard Phillipe Zdar‘s influence writ large and hailed by the band, alongside xx producer Rodiadh MacDonald) the new album feels, at first listens, as a bleaker affair. Where Bath Full wrapped up the listener in a cloud of positive warmth and gentle, existential questions, the backdrop to Freakout/Release’s creation seems to have tipped the band over into far a more introspective, fraught and anxious headspace (if the track titles were your first entry point, then you may baulk at ‘Down‘, ‘Broken‘, ‘Not Alone‘, ‘Guilty‘ and ‘The Evil That Men Do‘). But as with most of Hot Chip’s work, it’s never as binary as this, and while heartbreak preceded its recording – with long-time live addition Rob Smoughton’s near-death illness and Zdar’s passing – and global turmoil surrounded it, hearing the band talk about its making would bely the obvious assumptions that this is a bleak, lockdown album. It’s also interesting hearing Goddard and Taylor talk about the influence of live cover Sabotage over its making, something played out in both the rawer feel of some tracks and also the distorted, dry vocals used, which feels far out of the Hot Chip comfort zone.
Because while Goddard and Taylor have been open about how much the shadow of lockdown loomed over it, a two-pronged narrative emerged: the desire to make songs that they wanted to play in front of festival crowds, even if they didn’t know when that would happen, and a search for connection in music when isolation ruled our lives. Elemental stuff, and very much in tune with how I want to experience music (perhaps a big reason I have always chimed with their work). And on wading in, there are a few things that don’t feel like classic Hot Chip to me immediately: Down’s leaning closely on a sample – 1:42 into the Universal Togetherness Band’s More Than Enough – the isn’t unique (Why Make Sense’s Flutes is the obvious previous nod) to the band but having it on a lead single seems a departure when it’s so core to the song’s feel, which is as disco as they’ve ever got, and as full of Doyle’s guitar licks that it could be a different band to the likes of Shake A Fist’s jagged electronics (even though when you relisten, guitars come up a lot more than I remember across their catalogue). The title track also feels much more raw and messy than their polished, electronic pop sound, with the band passing the unfinished track through the brains of legendary duo Soulwax to get the right vibe. It’s a raucous, scuzzy, almost punky track, that seems very much at odds with the band’s sound, and, as it turns out, a real outlier. You’re left feeling it could’ve been so much more interesting to hear more of this, but would it dilute Hot Chip’s ethos so much they risk alienating the core of devoted fans that have been with them for so much of the journey? We’ll never know. But it’s a step into the unknown somewhat. And I like it.
There’s also a question about how much Goddard and Taylor’s hegemony has been loosened and how much solo and other band projects can and have influenced the band’s own output? Al Doyle’s ‘other band’ being LCD Soundsystem and the influence he’s now had on James Murphy’s outfit (writing a clutch of songs for their last album) has – to me – markedly led to his guitars and a ‘rockier’ sound come more into Hot Chip’s world in recent albums. When LCD split, Doyle and university friend Felix Martin formed New Build and scratched another musical itch. Taylor has released many keyboard and piano-based solo work and Goddard’s work as 2 Bears, and a solo album has solidified his own musical identity away from this outfit. Has a more egalitarian approach meant a richer tapestry for Hot Chip’s work, or diluted some of the magic that earlier albums found? Does the recording of Freakout/Release in Doyle’s new studio (‘Relax and Enjoy’) mean the band is more content to experiment or is that just a factor of being together for so long? This ‘third act’, from Why Make Sense certainly feels like something has changed. The question is where this leaves the band itself, and how those that buy the music feel about it.
So for this album, all isn’t quite fallen into place, for me. The problem perhaps with the programming of the album from here is that with second single Eleanor – a straight up PSB-style shimmering pop banger and earworm about love and loss – sandwiched between the two other ‘radio tracks’, it leaves the album with a challenge to maintain the momentum after 3 singles grab all the attention at the start. And perhaps this is where others have struggled with it, too. When I’ve dived in, I already know the 3 tracks off by heart so I either want to get past them to connect with the rest of the album, or when I have gone from track 1, it’s like a ‘before’ and ‘after’ between the opening stanza and the rest. It feels a particularly odd thing to do, and while it’d be reductive to wonder if there was a worry about the album’s staying power had led to this track order, I find it hard to entirely shake. And that’s a real shame, as there truly is a lot to like from Freakout/Release, but it’s hard to manoeuvre around this music ‘speed bump’ for a long while.
‘Broken’ is a beautiful song that talks about how to reach out and help someone, Taylor’s wistful vocals intertwining with the leads, and mined from real-life experience of feeling helpless at others’ suffering. It’s definitely a good example of where the band is: talking about emotion, heartache, wrapped up in lush, layered instrumentation. They’ve always done this heart-on-sleeve well, and it’s particularly well-twinned with Taylor’s vocals, but in recent albums, it’s more overt and none more so than this one. They seem ever more confident perhaps after years of doing this, to be upfront with such subject matter, even if it’s at odds with the tracks’ musical feel. This dissonance – to me – is brave, but often effective for the band (think ‘No God‘ on the previous album or ‘One Life Stand’). As a result, ‘Broken‘ isn’t a song that you’d feel would be in their early work, but there’s still a lineage back to the 80s synths that inspire them. With every album, there’s still nods to their touchstones: Prince, Kraftwerk, Robert Wyatt, Prefab Sprout or hip-hop and r’n’b from the 90s. It’s just that with maturity and age their sound is much more layered and complex than the austere, almost angular feel of Coming On Strong or The Warning. I have hugely enjoyed this progression (however subtle) but I also feel that some of that pure dancefloor energy has ebbed away as a result. But at 47, it’s not as big an issue as it may be for trying to hold the attention of the kids, coming up from behind.
‘Not Alone’ is a great example of Goddard and Taylor’s lyrics and vocals in motion together. Ever since they started making music together at school, there’s a certain alchemy that feels very much theirs. I can’t think of another band in the UK that employs two male vocals that operate mainly in falsetto or high ranges they way they do, and it’s one reason that – despite so many claiming others sound like them – they still sound so unique to me, inhabiting their own musical space so effectively over 20 years as others come and go around them. I get that it’s also a reason that some find them grating; if it’s not a style you can get on with, it’s going to be hard to love them (like I do, at least). It’s also another track that feels quite introspective and, well, sad. And perhaps this strain through much of the record is why it may be beautiful, and may envelop in the headphones as fantastically-constructed electronic pop music, but may ultimately not quite have the propulsive zip of previous albums.
‘Hard To Be Funky’ is a track definitely I wasn’t sure of at the outset: the lyrics jarred a bit and it’s ‘Alexis’ slow one’ (think White Wine and Fried Chicken, Slush, Look After Me, In The Privacy Of Our Love) but as you get past the pace, it’s an interesting question about the meaning of ‘funk’ – music that’s so core to what Hot Chip do, and that is so associated with sex and sleaze, and how this means so many different things to so many people. I also really like how Lou Hayter comes in as a point of difference, and it’s a collaboration that just works and brings something different. I always enjoy how any band opens up to this (look at how effective Porridge Radio’s appearance on Small World worked for Metronomy). ‘Time’ is about as ‘dancefloor’ as the album gets, which is – at least partly – a shame, but I’m glad it’s on the album. It does pick up the pace where the album starts to feel a bit out of gas. Similarly, its segue with ‘Miss The Bliss‘ is needed to keep this up. It’s actually a really lyrically simple track that speaks to supporting others – again borne out of the solitude of lockdown – and feels much closer to Goddard’s own solo work than anything else on the album, even featuring Goddard’s brother and various family members in the group for the choral vocal. It’s an uplifting and sweetly personal moment.
Perhaps I can’t entirely get on board with the programming – and am unable to think exactly how I’d change it – but I do salute individual tracks. ‘The Evil That Men Do‘ is another outlier for Hot Chip: an overtly ‘political’ song about toxic masculinity and male privilege that starts as a light call-response between Alexis and Joe ‘beg for forgiveness / bear witness / be humble‘, before opening up with piano and a lovely bridge that drops into Cadence Weapon’s flow, which is another welcome collaboration. A nod back to Posdnous’ much loved verse (by me, at least) on ‘Love Is The Future‘, from Why Make Sense? With a band that’s so steeped in hip-hop as influences it’s great to see it literally land on an album, and makes me wish there was more of it in their catalogue. It’s also another example of really dry, effected vocals (with the title track) where it’s an attempt to strip back the angelic tones of Taylor past the halfway mark as the track almost splits in two as Cadence’s flow leaps in. The contrast is so strong it’s almost jolting, but it really works for me.
The album closes with two of the stronger tracks: ‘Guilty‘, which feels like a live classic already. It leapt out on first listen and still sticks out. Musing on the difference between dream and waking consciousness, it’s playful and fun lyrically ‘when you see a finish line / does it end up your nose‘? There’s a real 80s funk feel to this, and it carries into the uplifting closer, ‘Out Of My Depth‘. Hot Chip do have a thing for statement closing tracks (Why Make Sense, or Bath Full’s No God, not to mention One Life Stand’s Take It In) and it’s an attempt to perhaps take the darker subject matter of Freakout and land on a more hopeful note, that sadness and emotion is not to be avoided but you can come out the other side intact: “Then I’m in my darkest room / But I’m careful not to enjoy it / All too much, but as I leave / It will be helpful to have endured it.” In many ways it’s one of the biggest nods to this being a far more ‘grown up’ album than their early work, and god knows we love ‘grown up pop’ ™.
So what to make of it this against their canon and – more importantly – the rest of music in 2022? It’s left me feeling slightly adrift of where I’d expect to be. Is this the first album I haven’t fallen for yet from the band? Will I eventually do that? Does every band have a finite shelf life and is this where we are finally heading here? Locking into the themes of how the band themselves can keep making music that has meaning to them – and to us – it genuinely feels strange not to have fallen for a Hot Chip album after a few listens for the first time. Even uncomfortable. I question myself, as much as I do the music. Does it say more about me or the band? Is this just a really good album but sits in comparison to other fresher, more inventive albums this year? It can’t hold a candle to Steve Lacey or Joy Crookes, or the power of Kendrick? But does that matter? Doesn’t it just really matter if it connects and I like it? And life life in general, am I just overthinking it?
For me, music has always been about feelings and connection. Every album before this from the band has had tracks that I feel deeply about. Some of them for reasons I can’t even put my finger on. Brothers is a track I can’t help but well up when I listen to. Written by Joe about this brother, I can’t obviously help but reference my own twin and how much he means to me. Or Night And Day’s little ‘Iknowyou’rethinkingaboutme’ line makes me want to jump out of my chair (and their videos? I could write a whole other blog about their genius). Or Let Me Be Him(from In Our Heads) chokes me up. And Melody Of Love cannot fail to moisten my eyes. Forget logic, it just subconsciously works. I cannot tell you how and it does not matter. Music is about connection for me, so to listen to Freakout/Release and think ‘this is lovely’ for a good chunk of it, doesn’t quite feel enough.
And there’s another, bigger, more important factor at play here: the band is older, lives have changed, families and other responsibilities, as for all of us, emerge. How much of that feeds into the music directly and how much of it is osmosis? It must surely permeate. None of us are in clubs like we used to be, and yet I miss their really big dancefloor bangers (as I also understand that it’d be odd for nothing to change). Think One Life Stand, or Hold On, or perhaps Shake A Fist, No Fit State or Huarache Lights. And I don’t really see that vibe here, for all the musical lushness and inventiveness. Again, does that matter? I still love dance music, and clubs – even if I’m rarely in them – and so having a Hot Chip album that doesn’t quite bang as much as others feels, well, sad. But perhaps it’s another facet of developing as a band, getting older, shifting subtly into areas that feel more removed from where you were ten years ago. Who am I to tell the band it’s not their right to do that, but is there a point where it starts to depart from me, personally? Because I know that even if this album never quite gives me the feels I’ve had before, I know when I see them live, it’ll be as good as it’s ever been with all their catalogue behind them. Because, they are a fantastic live band. It’s often overlooked but to me they are one of the best live bands around, an expanded 7 piece (with Smoughton and drummer Leo Taylor) that can recreate anything from the studio with added vigour and snap on tour. Where will I be? Down the front, singing, shouting, and crying, and I’d never have it any other way.
I worried when I first heard this album and read the press it hit me that perhaps this could be their last album? Maybe it was a reaction to some of the lyrics “Music used to be escape / Now I can’t escape it” (on the title track) and talk of the difficulty that surrounded making it, and perhaps leapt unguardedly to the wrong conclusion, because these things are never to be taken as read, as Taylor has talked about this time around. I don’t think that’s the case any more (especially given their packed touring schedule) and I sincerely hope they are around for a long time yet, but it’s hard not to worry about myself and my taste here as much as the band’s output and wonder where this will all end up. Because I’ve fallen in and out of love with bands before, but this is the first time my adult life coincided with a band I’ve loved from the start (I was ‘only’ 29 when The Warning arrived, and it’s been almost 20 years now since) where I’ve still never seen that desire wane. When that’s finally loomed, even if it’s not how it’ll play out, it shakes you and who you are.
So while Freakout/Release may not have left the mark on me of some of the other Hot Chip albums of the past, I’ve come to appreciate it far more lately than I’d first expected. It’s also made me think about how our relationships with bands and their music evolves, and perhaps accept that nothing lasts forever. That if things do change, I’ll always have a huge catalogue of tracks to pick from and revel in that still hold their lustre to me. I don’t get even half the number of albums I love from this band with many others, so it’s also given me some welcome perspective about great it is to love a band for as long as this. And that’s why I’m going to take the album at face value, enjoy it for what it is, stay in the moment for as long as I can, and look forward to the day when I see them live on their next tour. I’ve been lucky to have them around.
Sometimes when I agonise over choices for albums I try and deliberately pick something out of my comfort zone. Try Yves Tumor (less memorable) or Genesis Owusu (a knockout). Other times I regress to the mean, such as realising I could only pick Metronomy when Small World came around, even if I knew its reception with the group would be mixed. After that pick divided opinion, I had no obvious picks until mid-March when, out of nowhere a new Arcade Fire single dropped. Of course, this wasn’t quite the surprise: the band had been talking about a new album since 2020, but it did begin to feel like many of my favourite bands had teamed up to make 2022 the year all their new music arrived. Not just Metronomy or these guys: Hot Chip released a new single ahead of a long-awaited follow-up to Bathful of Ecstasy this summer. All I need now was an LCD and Radiohead LP (well, we had The Smile) and I had the full set.
But when I clicked on ‘The Lightning I / II’ to listen, it was with trepidation. Because Arcade Fire’s last album was… well…. Not very good. This was a band I’ve loved since Funeral arrived to such a frenzy in (my god) 2004. Indie darlings that made music with not just two guitars, a drum kit and a bass, but violins, piano, keys, accordions, strange percussion, organs, and yes, the famous hurdy gurdy. When that was distinctly not cool. Yet, it worked. An American/Canadian collective, the band made sprawling albums that didn’t really have singles – staggeringly, only Rebellion (Lies) from back in 2004 made it into the UK top 20, and none impacted even in their own country – but were big, thematic statements that worked as a whole, from Funeral’s ramshackle tales of childhood and rural life, through Neon Bible’s dystopian statement on capitalism, through the Suburbs’ Grammy-winning take on middle American ennui.
Their work with LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy divided opinion, but I loved Reflektor’s shimmering dance-pop-rock and up to that point every single album they made topped the half a million mark in sales, making them out as one of the few crossover bands that still made proper albums, still did what they wanted and yet headlined everywhere from Glastonbury to Lollapalooza (and who I’ve been lucky enough to see a handful of times myself). They are an incredible live band. One – for me – that of the modern era you have to see because there are so many of them, doing so many great things, and there’s real artifice and immersion in their live experience. I’m already excited about adding Manchester to gigs at the Roundhouse, Hyde Park, The o2, Victoria Park and Sonar.
All of this on an indie label – Merge (home to Caribou’s Andorra, and other indie darlings and famed guitar bands such as Waxahatchee, Dinosaur Junior, Tracey Thorn, Camera Obscura, Eleanor Friederberger, Ibibio Sound Machine, Bob Mould and Lambchop) through much of that career staked them out as a group that, despite being catapulted into stadiums, retained that grounded, principled, inventive core that still hung together, even as they worked with Bowie and released music produced by James Murphy. It was just…. Things really did go a bit south. In 2017 they decamped to Columbia’s major label musical and released Everything Now, a (supposedly) bold statement on consumer culture and the internet. The problem was, where previous work had confidently dealt with addressing broad brush themes such as capitalism and wealth, rural communities, suburban life and then crossed over the concepts with amazing, crowd-swelling music that somehow felt personal but celebrated arena-sized singalongs, this was as close to a huge band rolling a dud as I can remember. Everything Now was a big, ham-fisted misstep that scraped past half previous sales. And I say this as someone who absolutely adores this band. I can recall only a few songs from that album, and it has aged like iceberg lettuce alongside the timeless feel to the likes of Wake Up, (AntiChrist Television Blues), The Suburbs, Sprawl II, Afterlife, Keep The Car Running, Rebellion (Lies) and Here Comes The Night Time. Sure, tracks like Electric Blue and Put Your Money on Me had all the melodies, but their sentiment was empty and the connection the band seemed to be able to hypnotically form with their listener was mostly absent. The less said about the likes of Infinite Content or Chemistry, the better. Perhaps, for once, they overdid their promo campaign, with its po-faced, repetitive message. We’ll never know how much pressure they truly felt making this album, or where, perhaps the pressure of major label living pushed them, but into their 40s, it felt like a bit of an event horizon.
So where does We stack up in their canon? The singles The Lightning I / II and Unconditional I (Lookout Kid) certainly felt like a pronounced step back to the pre-Reflektor sound (and for all that I loved that album, many fans did not). The former’s piano and acoustic / synth lead over heartfelt lyrics “We can make it / If you don’t quit on me / I won’t quit on you” with songwriting partners, husband and wife, and lifeblood of the band (now Win’s brother Will has recently left), Win Butler and Regine Chassange combining as of old, tugging at those heartstrings and staring into each others’ souls before the song changes up into a new gear, evoking Funeral as much as anything. And Unconditional I (Lookout Kid) finding Butler in tender mood, singing to his child, and feeling immediately personal in a way that much of the last two albums weren’t. I fell in love with these tasters, and had such high hopes. But I also worried this may be ‘the Small World’ effect though, with two great singles and an album that was markedly different to that first look – though of course I loved that record – and left many fans somewhat deflated.
First impressions? Mixed. Alongside the much more honed 10-song, 40 minute album that felt a subtle acknowledgement of their recent over-long and sprawling efforts, this was a far tighter, more focused record. No surprise given they had Radiohead producer/god Nigel Godrich in charge. But while the music was immediately fantastic, its two-side, earnest concept perhaps felt the band hasn’t quite rid itself of the need to make some high statement. Each album now seemed to have a ‘theme’, an ‘outfit’ and while part of me salutes the art-rock sensibilities of a band that wants their music to have meaning, and the balls to wrap it up in statements about the world, life and humanity, it works best when it’s subtle and not written in ten foot high letters with accompanying shiny text. The two sides ‘I’ and ‘We’ and some fairly clumsy track titles – ‘Age of Anxiety’ is very much what we’re living in but do we need to have a song title to emphasise it? – and some equally clunky lyrics – it’s taken me a long time to not wince when ‘Unsubscribe’ (in End of the Empire IV), and you wonder if a lot of the recent criticism of the band would have been softened if their method was slightly less overt. Because they are (in my opinion) earnest, heartfelt people, who care, and are not embarrassed to say it – their often unpublicisedcharity work in particular sets them out from a lot of contemporaries – and their songs are all around connection to each other and the world, and work best when it’s intertwined with the music and not stamped on the front before you press play.
The good news is, the more you listen to We, the more this fades into the background, and a really good, uplifting album emerges from the bold pronouncements. I’ve been listening to this for weeks on end and it’s an absolute joy to have in my life. I’m aware I may be partly or largely alone here, but I also say – like any of our AOTMs – this needs time and dedication to get the rewards. Because this is a band that is all about connection and when they are at their best they feel like you’re connected with them, their music, and each other. As an example, I still have a real visceral connection and reaction to the lyrics in The Suburbs, that only amplified when I became a dad: “So can you understand / That I want a daughter while I’m still young? / I want to hold her hand And show her some beauty before this damage is done / But if it’s too much to ask, if it’s too much to ask / Then send me a son.” And in their best moments, they make you feel like their songs are written for you. It’s how I feel with so many great songs, and with many of the band’s previous best, from Reflektor, Sprawl II, Intervention, Wasted Hours, and so many more. These are songs that evoke primal emotions in me, and that’s what I search for in music, and why I’ve loved Arcade Fire’s music for the best part of two decades. You can’t manufacture that feeling (yes, the feels) and for them it’s there, and has always been there.
There are so many moments of this on the album of me. And even though it’s got faults, my overriding feeling is joy and release when I lock the headphones in and leave the rest of the world behind for 40 minutes. I have had a hard time of late, and this album has been a real solace for me. Age of Anxiety has…. well, it’s a good opener but the opening piano chords link irreparably to another song and band I can’t now shake and that’s put a dampener on it a little for me (and apparently has Father John Misty ‘on handclaps’). I’ll let others see if they pick this out the way I have. But while it’s a little obvious lyrically, what we get with We is that overriding ability for Arcade Fire to write great tunes. There are hooks all over the place here (as @misterstory might say) and when the drums kick in and the energy goes up a notch, I just can’t help but we drawn in. Rabbit Hole is an unexpected banger, full of nods to Bowie (‘Plastic Soul… yeah’) and shows some of the evolution of the band in recent albums to embrace synths as well as guitars and accordions. It really does it for me, like Sprawl II on a great big pill and some strobes. End of the Empire, while opining witheringly but delicately on the ‘fall’ of the United States, is such a great example of the band’s skill, and how they start slow with mournful piano and then just uplift more and more, and there’s a real ‘Suburbs’ feel on this. And its second part, once you get over ‘the unsubscribe thing’ it’s a really beautiful song. There’s a cosmic feel to some of this, perhaps a concoction of Godrich’s work with Radiohead and a hangover from some of their best work with Murphy.
But it’s on the second side (‘We’) that the album really elevates, with The Lightning I and II, and Unconditional I and II, a pair of pairs (if you will) that show the band at their best, and most personal. Lookout Kid is a track I fell in love with at the start, and it’s now a song my daughter loves and asks me to put on. So it’s an added personal connection, but it’s how Arcade Fire’s alchemy works too, somehow seeming to have written songs directly for you and that resonate with what you are feeling. As a father with a young daughter, it feels so aligned with so much of my emotions and brings tears to my eyes every time I listen. That is all you can want from music, after all. Part II surprisingly brings Peter Gabriel into the mix and it really works. It’s a rousing end to the album, which has a soft and glowing coda in We, with its simple arrangement and ability to slow us down and signal the album is over. Musically, it ticks so many of my loves for the band, but I know it’s only how I feel.
The other intriguing narrative here – and one we will probably touch on in the podcast – is, over the course of their music career, that well-trodden path from small-town gigs to stadium rock, and how that affects a band and their output, and how that changes how they see themselves and we look back at them. You can’t be the same people – even if you are married to the other singer and writer of the band – over 20 years, 6 albums, and an arc from small-town band to global rock stadium superstars, fighting to retain as much of what made you that fascinating proposition in the first place. I can’t think of many bands that have what they had back when, or that have currently progressed through this curve like Arcade Fire have. I’m willing to fight for this, too. They have been at times world-beating, and at others, seemingly off course and unsure of themselves. How do you write songs about your ‘Neighbourhood’ when you don’t live there any more? You can’t, of course, but I think they’ve maintained a lot of their character and style – despite many missteps – and We gets them back towards where so many want them to be. Of course, we don’t get to dictate where a band goes, or what music they make, but there’s something vital about being with them on that journey as they grow and change with us. It’s no coincidence that so many of my favourite bands of the last 20 years – Arcade Fire, Radiohead, Hot Chip, LCD Soundsystem, Metronomy – are around my age or so and I’ve taken that same journey with all of them. It’s what welds us to these artists, that connection, feeling part of their story and their own arc and changing with them.
There’s something really exciting about new music from artists you love, and with the pandemic (supposedly) ‘over’ there’s a ton of albums coming, from Kendrick to Hot Chip, and of course my favourite Arcade Fire.
This really feels like a nod back to the old school of Funeral after Everything Now. Bring it on.
It’s about time, really. 21 episodes in and I’d been waiting for a new Metronomy album to arrive so we could finally cover it on the podcast. Disclosure: there’s no point in pretending otherwise, but I’ve been an unashamed fan since the blog started in the dim and distant 2010s, and in my mind, they’re a band that should fit right into the middle of our sprawling Venn diagram, so I was surprised to find out that Joey and Nolan weren’t nearly as familiar with them as I thought. Challenge accepted: at least as with many things, I have Pop Being David for company here. But I still wavered, with February’s avalanche of great new music from the likes of pod favourite Mitski, psych rock Animal Collective, Trentemoller as as well as heralded new year picks from Bonobo and Yard Act. In the end though, I couldn’t pass this up. I’d have kicked myself. And when I second guess myself I end up in the Talvin Zone ™.
My love affair with Joe Mount’s musical outfit began as it did for many, back in 2011 with their third album: The English Riviera. Its the record that really ‘broke’ the band, with its wry take on life and love in the English south coast and Mount’s home town of Totnes in Devon. Along with headline-grabbing singles The Bay and The Look came tales of small-town ennui, love, loss and introspection, all played out on a canvas of synths, crisp percussion, guitar licks and funk bass, and I was smitten. Yes, they were clearly a pop outfit, but they crept into the far more interesting territory of ‘alternative’ British pop music that had something to say, and an intriguing way to say it. For all the chart-ready vibrancy of the singles, there also sat musical beauty and character from the likes of Some Written’s soft tones, sultry funk of We Broke Free and the kaleidoscopic closer Love Underlined. It marked out a step up for the four-piece, whose line-up had been reworked and for whom Mount, as the driving force was proving his rare talents as – in my eyes at least – one of the country’s best singer-songwriter-producers.
I have very specific memories of the album too. I came to love it in the slightly surreal surroundings of Monaco. Having ligged onto a trip to the Grand Prix weekend with friends David and Will that worked in the feeder GP2 series, I was listening to its unfurling eleven tracks on the actual Riviera. I feel that Joe Mount would’ve enjoyed that irony (hi Joe, if you’re reading). So I’m always treated to both a really vivid recollection of the surroundings I was in, and a hark back to the start of my love affair with the band. I’ve not been back to Monaco since, but then I don’t need to. I just fire up the strings in that opening and I’m there. That led me to their underrated predecessor, Nights Out, which had its own idiosyncratic attraction, less so to the bedroom debut guitar/synth mish-mash Pip Paine (Pay The £5000 You Owe), but from which a lineage through to their later albums could still be traced. I gorged on the lot. I had found a band that I could love in the same universe at Hot Chip and LCD, one that took a more mainstream template and bent it to their own shape.
Before 2022, David actually chose their last album – the excellent Metronomy Forever – as one of our monthly picks in the ‘before times’ of 2019, but it’s a surprise searching back through the archives that it appears the only time we’ve done it, (though I’m convinced we did pick the English Riviera back in the proto-blog days of Posterous, at least as something we all listened to). It’s been a joy waiting for each album to come out, from the 60s-pop window of Love Letters, through the out and out punch of Summer 08‘s window to the pre-English Riviera years, through to the precursor to Small World, the more sprawling and interesting Metronomy Forever. Every one of them has brought new songs to love, new skills to marvel at, and an ever-growing adoration for Mount’s skills. All the while he’s been behind Metronomy’s success, he’s a modest but brilliant producer whose work’s been part of output by everyone from Robyn to thecocknbullkid and remixing everyone from Gorillaz, Goldfrapp and Lady Gaga, while being a big element in the supergroup of production talent on early pod favourite Jessie Ware’s ‘What’s Your Pleasure’?
Enter: Small World. Timing is everything, and many great albums from artists we love have missed the window for an AOTM: Caribou, Roisin Murphy, in recent times stood out here. So I have gambled somewhat on giving ourselves a compressed sixteen days from release to record, with this post coming only ten days in. We’ve had some albums for ten times that before now. But we’ve already had a taster in the shape of two excellent singles – Things Will Be Fine and It’s Good To Be Back (check the videos that top and tail this post) – to grace the start of 2022. An album of 9 songs over thirty-five minutes should be easy to gorge on. I just hope that it won’t be too short a time to hit that magic mark where you really fall for a record. After all, I showed with The Weather Station that it’s easy to be unsure when we record and to have changed your mind by the time we put the episode’s out. A very first world problem.
But I needn’t have worried, because Small World is an absolute joy, stripping back the layers while extolling the simple pleasures in life after the great reset we all felt. But it is also a marked departure. Musically, it’s still clearly tres Metronomy but there are some significant, if intriguing changes to the normal synth-pop template. The main one of these is the synths: they’re not absent, but very much on the fringes, something that feels unheard of for the band, and that may risk rubbing lots of fans right up the wrong way.
In fact, on the record sleeve – and I gloried in the vinyl here, something I’ve started most days working from home with in the background – Mount stated that the idea was to have none on the record, only piano and hammond organ. And a brilliant quote on their Instagram that’s both serious and self-deprecating that sums up the band in many ways: “I thought I’d like to do something musical, that isn’t very electronic…. someone taking themselves a bit seriously and thinking they should do a Nashville record. It’s almost a midlife crisis”. It’s funny because it just is, but also because Joe Mount is entering mid life. And while it doesn’t quite work out as synth-free, piano and acoustic guitars are very much a running motif of the album, from the cascading melody in the slow-burn opener Life and Death.
The tone is set from the off as one of change: middle age, family, introspection, anxiety, growing old. All things we’ve seen many times from artists that have gone from loose-limbed twenty-somethings to 40-somethings, looking back on their youth and forward into the future, but for Mount, whose musical character has been so steeped in pop and its youthful slant, this is something that comes with risk. And it’s album that’s much more personal, as he admitted in a recent excellent interview with DIY mag. “I’ve always thought that pop music is for teenagers, and I’ve always thought that I make pop music. So if what I do doesn’t interest those people, then I’m not doing very well.“
In Life and Death, there’s a bleakness to the lyrics that runs through the album at times, as Mount, far more than before, shifts from love, loss, parties and an ironic twist on English life to move himself towards the centre of the action: “It was fun what I did / Got a job, had some kids / See you in the abyss”, both perhaps a personal state of mind but also a reference to the two years the album took shape in, one where we all got more accustomed to both life and death itself. Not perhaps the sound of a content man, but it’s never quite clear with Metronomy how much is for lyrical effect and how much is real, because his relocation to the country and his first purpose-built studio has found him far more balanced with the life of a parent pop star than he’s sounded in years.
Trying to ascertain the feel for a new album is tricky. It takes time and investment, and there’s a (pleasing) bump in the road with Small World where, after the opener, the two singles then come in succession. Taken in isolation – they are almost the two tracks most out of step with the album’s palette. But when they sit in the first side of the 9 tracks, they actually take on a different hue. Things Will Be Fine’s nod to teenage angst (caused by the film that shocked many in this country, Raymond Briggs’ harrowing When The Wind Blows) can’t stay in the darkness too long: “I might save the day, i might change the world… Things will be fine“. It also referred to a mantra Mount was telling his children through the last two years, blending real life into the band’s more oblique metaphors of the past, and accompanied by a brilliant video that harks back to each of the band at 15). And its breezy guitar strums very much out of the 60s pop mould push things along, in a way that wouldn’t feel out of place on Love Letters. It’s Good To Be Back’s infectious lightness also is hard to avoid (along with the brilliant, strange video, a medium the band have always enjoyed to great effect since The Look). It’s the song that stuck in my head through January, but it’s after this opening salvo where things get interesting. It’s not diminishing those tracks, but ultimately, the lead singles will always feel a little incongruous when you’ve gorged on them before the album arrives.
It may be reductive to paint Small World’s change in tone as reducing the band’s strengths (and some have crudely done that) but I’ve found the album to be a continually rewarding and engaging experience, and it’s down to the subtle shifts in direction and style throughout that provide this again and again. There’s an argument that I definitely acknowledge, that when you strip away the synths and the bounce of so many of their previous tracks, that there’s potential exposure of some lyrical lack of adventure that Metronomy have been painted with the past. I see that. But it’s also doing a disservice to the beauty of the melodies and the near-perfection arrangements in this record too. Plenty of great pop music doesn’t need to be profound or lyrically mesmerising. Simply saying ‘this isn’t like Salted Caramel Ice Cream‘ is just stating a fact. To me, either you love Metronomy in all their forms or perhaps you rethink what your musical directions are. I mean, this is hardly Kid A here. Many of these songs could slot into an existing album without much effort, it’s just the whole narrative that feels different. But as much as many of their albums to date, this feels fully formed and whole.
Continuing the A-side (sorry, mp3 crew), Loneliness on the Run’s 90s-esque intro of plucked bass makes me think of Weezer and the yesteryear US-garage indie scene, but soars into a different space from its harmonies, adding a sprinkle of light in a starry melody in the break. Even as it moves along, there are unmistakably familiar splashes in each song. And vocal harmonies are a BIG, beautiful part of the record, elevating what feel like more formulaic tracks to something much more beautiful. If pianos are one motif, then acoustic guitars and harmonies are very much the other two in the triumvirate of what Small World does differently.
In the middle of it all, sits my album favourite: Love Factory. There’s a real 70s/80s AOR vibe on it, with its vocal interplay – not hard to see the lineage from Mount’s love of the likes of Steely Dan to this moment – and its treatment of love as something perhaps less romantic and spontaneous but ‘churned out’. There’s irony here – as the protagonist tries to show his usefulness in the face of the ‘factory’ production line – but the melody carries the song along on a cloud. Lyrically, it’s perhaps the simplest and most straightforward of the album but Mount’s talked about the song being ‘relentless’ here, with its looped melody and listing verses. But the fuzz guitar and circular piano phrases have had me woken up in the night singing its notes. That is hard to reject.
Lost My Mind is an interesting curveball, even as it shares some familiarity. The literal and metaphorical losing of one’s mind in the pandemic: ‘how friends of ours in quite different situations were just in apartments, on their own, feeling very isolated and out of touch‘ was another quite personal statement from Mount. But the music really evoked something specific in me. I felt a real Bowie energy here, with a sprinkling of Eno in the strange choral/vox synth chords, before the piano wig-out that closed the song. It really is hard to shake that feel, so I am fascinated if any of the group’s Bowie antennae felt similarly tweaked. At the other end of the pendulum, Right On Time (complete with a suitably daft skydiving video) urges us to try and ‘enjoy the sunshine’, even as we all sat in Covid-gloom. That even while things were scary and sad, there are simple pleasures we can take in.
The album closes with two more intriguing tracks. The first is a rare guest on the album outside the Metronomy universe: Hold Me Tonight sees Porridge Radio’s Dana Margolin join into what is arguably the most straightforward love song on the record. A tale of desperation and hope, unrequited love as Mount’s verses. It’s a relatively breezy 90s-esque indie pop jangler until Margolin’s striking vocals enter at the halfway mark: ‘so you found the courage / do you regret it yet / it’s not what you wanted / but I guess it’s off your chest’. I think it’s a fascinating dynamic where the male vocal is higher than the female, and less powerful, playing with the balance on literal and metaphorical levels. And a song that was a totally different slant, almost binned and then resurrected when Mount sent it to Dana for her input, turning it into a desolate and unexpected response. It’s a masterstroke of serendipity. I’ve listened to it so many times – and as someone that’s not really come across much of Porridge Radio – and I can’t quite place who the vocal makes me recall. I’d want to say Robert Smith but that doesn’t feel quite right. But it’s a definitely welcoming development and one of the standout tracks.
Closer I Have Seen Enough I first thought was a bleak tale of a failed marriage – we can watch the flowerbeds rising / Each year our children grow / I will sit with you in silence / As we watch our favourite show” – but it’s much less specific than that, of course echoing the pandemic, but also again urging us to enjoy the small, simple things in life. For a song that’s quite slow and maudlin, it’s quite the sleight of hand, actually having such a positive message. It’s also odd that it was originally planned to be sung in French. Mais non.
In living with this album almost endlessly for the last ten days, I’m naturally concerned that I’m going to be prejudiced not only by my own gasping adoration for the band, but also a need to step back and try and gain some perspective away from the churn of dozens (twenty now? more?) of listens that have made me love it more. But I could easily burn it out, and by the time we record (in a week) be sick of it. Or at least see it lose its lustre and perhaps edge closer to some of the ‘yeah, it’s lovely but….’ critical responses. But right now, it’s an album I can’t put down. And having waited three years since its predecessor, and seen such a departure, it feels much more like one whose ‘woah’ softens with each listen, and by now, just feels as Metronomy as ever. It also makes me wonder where their next album will go, and feel already excited about that.
I wonder what the others will make of it. I suspect I may be flying a lone flag here. I know brother @davidhallison is a big fan of the band, and should really like this, but I’m not so sure. And as the record approaches, it always gets more shaky when it’s a band you adore. Is it – as it has from others first reactions – ‘not Metronomy enough’? And for @misterstory and @nolankane706, perhaps too much of a departure from all those Metronomy bangers of the past? But I really do think this is an album – and that’s what we’re here for aren’t we? – that works as well as any of their previous ones as an entity. It is quintessentially English, has a theme, is perfectly short, and taut, arranged beautifully, and makes me want to go for another listen again and again (even if I have to turn the record over, at least I’m getting out of my chair). I may not convince everyone of this. But perhaps I don’t have to. I’m happy with it. Things will be fine.
We’re through the hinterland of Dec/Jan release twilight and there’s some amazing new records out, many of which are from previous AOTM favourites. So here’s a little rundown from @whyohwhyohwhy of some picks.
Arlo Parks – Softly
A bit of a change-up, musically. Pace, a bit of a breaks/d’n’b feel and a big piano. Lovely.
Yard Act – Fixer Upper
It’s hardly novel to big these guys up, but this is a great track and brilliant lyrics.
Snail Mail –Valentine
I stumbled across this in my search for a Feb AOTM (before we Album clubbed it) and it’s really great guitar music, in the way that a lot isn’t around any more. The album is worth really checking out.
Mano Le Tough – Either Way
It’s like the album never really stopped….
The Weather Station – Endless Time
They did a new song. No one knew they were doing it. We all win.
We loved loved loved Mitski’s Be The Cowboy in 2018, and she’s back with a new album – Laurel Hell – in February 2022. Before this lands there’s a fantastic new EP, which takes in 3 sumptuous tracks including this upbeat, synth and guitar-pop of The Only Heartbreaker. Roll on next year!
In Part 1 we speak in depth about Young Fathers latest album 'Heavy Heavy' and how it packs such a punch in 32 minutes. In Part 2 we play 'Spin it or bin it?', the theme this month is the curious anomaly that is 'Post Genre'.Part 1 | Album of the Month | Young Fathers | Heavy HeavyIt's Guy's choice this month and we return back to an artist that we spoke about 9 years ago when they released their debut 'Dead'. Across 3 previous releases, Young Fathers have secured near universal critical acclaim, yet little commercial success. Is Heavy Heavy the album that will change this. It looks like it. But that doesn't mean this is a collection of easy listening pop tunes. We discuss what this is, what we love and the live experience. If you know them enjoy, if you don't dig in!Go listen to the album – Here Go watch some videos – Here Go buy some of their stuff – HereA few Heavy Heavy things that we highly recommend checking out;Unmuted Unmastered Podcast – HereLine of Best Fit interview – HereSome live performances – Here and Hereand HerePart 2 | Spin It or Bin It | Post GenreWhat the hell is post genre? In this discussion we prove that we're really not sure!Guy chose – Mantra by Charlotte Adigery and Bolis Pupul Nolan Chose – BTSTU by Jai Paul Joey chose – B.O.B. by Outkast David chose – L'Elephant by Tom Tom Club A 16 track Post Genre playlist (4 tracks each) can be found – Here (this is a good one!)Next MonthJoey brings Kelela's 'Raven' for Album of the Month and we play 'Spin It or Bin It?' but what will be the theme?We've been writing a blog for years come and have a look – https://thisisnothappening.net/We've been writing the blog for years come and have a look – https://thisisnothappening.net/
Episode 17 of This Is Not Happening follows Billie Eilish’s memorable new album with a slice of classy electronic music from Irishman Mano Le Tough. Dubliner turned Zurich resident Niall Mannion’s third album At The Moment saw him expand his musical horizons in lockdown, and we all got to stand back and say what it meant to us. Nolan was at the tiller this month.
In the second half of the episode, we go to the movies, picking out our favourites from original music in films, and it was a beautiful conversation blending our love for the silver screen with our love for music. Here’s our shortlist, and longer lists from Guy and David. It was an absolute joy doing this month. The tracks we chose were:
November’s album of the month and all our tracks, playlists, and chat from our last decade or more can be found on our blog at www.thisisnothappening.net, which runs alongside the podcast choices and all sorts more. Head down there and hopefully you’ll find more stuff to like. We’d love to hear from you on the socials (links below).
Episode #18 arrives with our favourite month of the year with of our review of 2021. We’ll be picking out our favourite Top 10 albums, and tracks of the year. Not too long to wait!
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