Hailing from the West Yorks hinterland, WHOLE SKY MONITOR made critical inroads with their "We Grow Up" EP, not least from this here organ who were rather taken with its' frazzled guitars and passionate delivery at the time. So much so we awaited the lengthy arrival of debut album "Just Let Me Talk To Her" with something akin to bated breath.
Sadly, though, WSM struggle to attain the required consistency over the course of a full-length album. For starters, they're hampered by leaden, flat production (Gogs Byrn's boxy drums suffer especially) and - as we'll see - in places they simply don't have the material in place as yet.
But the prognosis is by no means entirely bleak, and "Just Let Me Talk To Her" does have its' moments along the way. It kicks off impressively enough with the excellent double-whammy of "Unrequited" and "The Chosen", where the band are gritty and riffsmart and Jon Parkes and Paul Hewson (not THE Paul Hewson, one assumes?)'s guitars work up a righteous maelstrom. "Unrequited" is especially cauterising, while on "The Chosen" Parkes' voice has an effectively eerie quality. "We Grow Up", meanwhile, is reprised from the EP and it finds WSM employing a moody restraint along the lines of early Red House Painters that's stark and attractive.
More of this individualism and the album could be a contender, but sadly too much of the remainder fails to rise above the bog standard noisy indie guitar morass. Tracks like "Be Beautiful" and "On A Roll" are typical of the malaise: both begin chiming and plodding and inevitably put the Nirvana-style boot in when you most expect it. "Horizon", meanwhile, has a half-hearted stab at shoegazing pop, but falls at the first hurdle and the unfortunately-monikered "Basic Rock Song" appears to be a pop at the NME and the Libertines cult ("Welcome to Arcadia, Chairman Mao and year zero.."). Fair enough, but allying it with a tune that proceeds to plod relentlessly when it should soar kinda dulls the effect and the joke is ultimately on the band themselves.
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WSM'S desire to experiment is admirable enough. They have semi-successful stabs at lovelorn romanticism ("End Of The Year") and Buzzcocks-y flange-pop ("Rosy Tinted Eyes") as the album progresses, and both could be of interest if explored at greater length, but funnily enough the only other place they really convince is with the acoustic closing track "Fireships", which is basically just Parkes alone and vulnerable with his guitar and sounding alluringly bleak. It's a nice way to end an album that sparks intermittently, but ultimately frustrates more than anything.
Whole Sky Monitor are certainly a band to watch, and this debut album harbours enough moments of inspiration to suggest better days will come. Nonetheless, however much the band may plead "Just Let Me Talk To Her", they'll have to be far more dashing and persuasive if they want to get the girl and ride off into the sunset in the future.
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