Whether you love 'em or hate 'em, THE OTHERS' brilliantly anarchic eponymous debut album proved beyond doubt they were in this for the long haul. The fact they recently received the John Peel Award For Musical Innovation at the NME Awards (for their services to the infamous guerilla gigging they've patented as their own) only compounds the fact that elements of 'the establishment' (erk) are having to finally take them seriously. Not before time, if you ask me.
Because, regardless of the band's proclivity for manipulating the media, frontman Dominic Masters' admissions of drug-taking and bisexuality and all the usual tabloid fodder, they do actually have the music - and plenty to say - to fall back upon, however wondrously scabrous their brand of cranky rock'n'roll may sound.
"William" is the obvious next single from "The Others" too. It's a choppy, spiky, molotov cocktail of a pop song, primed and urgent and as explosively bouncy as hell. As you may well already know, it's Dominic's tribute to his lifelong mate (a-ha!) William, and it's a rousing tribute to friendship, trust and all manner of hedonistic skullduggery ("chopping lines out on my knee, while discussing empathy") driven along by Jimmy Lager's brilliantly knuckleheaded guitar and a typical thundering rhythm from Johnny Others and Martin Oldham. In short, a veritable hit.
|
So yes, it's easy to scoff at all the stuff the dear old NME are printing about The Others as the true 'band of the people', but for once its' hard to fault their reasoning. "William" is a crunching Everyman anthem delivered with typical brash charisma by a band whose rough'n'ready thrills and spills are just the ticket for all the disaffected (and not just the poor) out there. Providing over-indulgence doesn't throw any banana skins their way, it looks as though real stardom beckons. If so, I'd wager they can handle it.
|
