Your reviewer's not in the habit of quoting wholesale from press releases, but then he doesn't usually receive ones as wonderfully self-deprecatory as the one that came with SHATNER'S album "Energise". It reads as follows: "Wiliam Shatner: slightly too old and overweight for the heroic role in which he found fame and fortune. Yet he got to drive a massive space ship and snog green alien women. What better role model could there be for four thirtysomething musicians approaching their final frontier?"
Absolutely. So, as you'll have gathered, we're not dealing with another bunch of Pete Doherty-worshipping Londoncentric brats here. In fact, Shatner are the brainchild of long-serving, Leeds-based singer/ songwriter Jim Bower: a man whose muse has brushed against the hard-nosed industry on and off over the past 15 years or so and seldom come off best.
So Jim and his cohorts Chris Minz (Keyboards, vocals,), Rick Bower (bass) and drummer Dick Sharp - themselves footsoldiers in the local rock wars over the years - have few illiusions about trying to compete with the latest bunch of haircuts being touted in the NME and suchlike. However, in sticking to their old skool, indie guns they've fashioned a little guitar pop gem with "Energise", their debut album as Shatner.
Catchy, quirky British pop is the order of the day and after a few listens its' clear Jim Bower's songwriting is a bit of a find. Opener "It's Your Universe" gives you some idea where they're coming from: it's intelligent, superior-harmony guitar pop, with Chris Minz's keyboards adding a welcome touch of space and Steve Nieve-esque grandeur and demonstrates that Shatner are tight, drilled and more than comfortable creating in this arena.
It's pretty much the template for the remainder of the album, and songs such as "I Have Seen The Future", "She's Not You" and - especially - "Celebrity" make it clear Bower excels at melding pithy, observational lyrics with (mostly) upfront pop tunes. "Celebrity", in particular, is a punchily acerbic stab at all the would-be Kate Mosses out there, and it's impossible not to relate to lines like "You'd sell your soul to get the spotlight in you/ Remove all your unsightly hairs for Sting and Elton and the Blairs - who cares?" Who indeed.
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Elsewhere, on tracks such as the slightly trippy, chiming pop of "Rise And Shine" and the reflective, autumnal resignation of Chris Minz's "Square One", Shatner sound a little like the more rural, later period XTC and indeed Bower's vocal delivery sounds like a hybrid of XTC's Colin Moulding and Yeah Yeah Noh's Derek Hammond: both men who - lest we forget - have also been responsible for undervalued quirky pop in the past. The XTC thing is by no means overbearing, though, and for the most part Shatner play it straight and catchy, with immediacy and idiosyncratic melody to the fore.
But really "Energise" isn't burdened with any deadwood to speak of. It's a likeable listen from front to back with precious little need of the skip button. I don't really know whether Shatner see themselves doing this realistically for more than fun or local credibility in the long run, but certainly this debut suggests they are good enough to compete on a wider scale should they so desire. Indeed, if the idea of staunchly undersung thirtysomethings making relevant guitar pop sounds highly illogical, then hear "Energise" first. It's also illogically good.
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