Review:'Wojtek The Bear' 'Shaking Hands With The NME'
- Label: 'Last Night From Glasgow'
- Genre: 'Indie'
- Release Date: '14.4.24.'
Our Rating:
Wojtek The Bear are back with the bands latest album Shaking Hands With The NME, the album was produced by Stephen Street and the band are as ever Becky, Chuck, Paul, Scott and Tam.
The album gently fades in on the albums first single Second Place On Purpose a wistful memoir of letting someone special win instead of your good self, over the strings and trumpet backing this has a warm evocative feeling.
Frank sweeps into view encased in strings as they ask for a Frank response to the burning questions, rather than being about someone called Frank, do those answers come from within the beautifully laid-back music, well maybe.
Sometimes You Have To Go Left which may well still be easily done in the bands Native Glasgow but has become rather more difficult to do in large parts of London, as the campaign to make our city undriveable continues, obviously this gentle bucolic song is not about London's roads, but about the only way to make things right is to do something that may appear to be wrong.
Small Time Highs has an almost hymnal feel to this evocation of the realization that chasing the next high is often self-defeating behaviour, as they tell us about treating this place like a confessional as the strings make you spill your guts in search of redemption once more.
A Sunday Without The Fear is all about the bands obsession with ice cream over hushed guitars and brushed percussion as then strings sweep through as the bitter regret comes through in the lyrics.
Fireworks Out of Focus are for one of those displays that take place on a dreich night with sheets of rain changing your perception for how the Fireworks look, as the memories flood back, this feels like a warm hug on a freezing cold winters night.
The Reluctant Astronaut may be dedicated to anyone being asked to get on one of Elon Musk's rockets, as the songs narrator tells us his tale of going into space, how it made him feel, all his fears before take off and his deep seated need to feel the warm embrace of gravity once more.
God Loves A Trier and this tune is certainly that, a lush chamber pop evocation of what you need to do so stop all the arguments and get on with loving each other while worshipping at the church of Prefab Sprout.
Slowly, Then All At Once is well a slow sad song hoping the medical help arrives in time, as the chorus builds and the wonderment carries on.
The album closes with the title track Shaking Hands With The NME that has them dreaming of going to the Brit Awards and hanging out with Steve Lamaq, in a gentle kind of way that would be the opposite of the kind of party that normally happens at awards shows, while hoping for a live session at Maida Vale etc..
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