I've no idea what dreams of riches and stardom WE ARE SCIENTISTS entertained when they hooked up their U-Haul and made the trip east from their native Berkeley, California, but since arriving in their adopted New York city homebase, things have really been happening for them.
And nowhere more so than this side of the pond, where their two trailer singles "Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt" and "The Great Escape" have sent the press into raptures, gained accolades like Zane Lowe's Record Of The Week and sessions on Steve Lamacq's influential BBC radio show.
Listening to their taut'n'biting debut album "With Love And Squalor", you can largely see why the public's collective pants are dampening on impact, too. Keith Murray (guitar/ vocals), Chris Cain (bass/ vocals) and drummer Michael Tapper seem to positively eat, sleep and excrete angularity and - proffering a sound apparently roughly equal measures Radio Four, early Gang Of Four and Joy Division - it's no surprise they are fast becoming the cerebral (wo)man's eggheaded pin-ups of choice.
The singles are very much representative of what's going on here too. They're constructed around skinny, spiky guitars, fluid'n'propulsive basslines of the Peter Hook/ Dave Allen variety and Tapper's busy, musclebound drumming. Add in Murray's excitable, Shawn Christensen-style vocals and the band's adroitness with punky lift-offs and you have a formula which will ensure WAS go far in these post-punk re-embracing times.
And therein lie both their strengths and weaknesses. Yes "With Love And Squalor" makes for an energetic and engaging debut album, and when allied to songs as abrasive and compelling as "Callbacks", the tingly, Josef K-bothering "Textbook" and the amphetamine energy of probable third single "Lousy Reputation", Murray and co sound wholly convincing. Add in a likeable cynical/ fatalistic lyrical bent (e.g: "20 years of bad decisions haven't taught me much at all" - "Textbook") and a rarely called-upon ability with slower, more enigmatic material such as "Can't Lose" and We Are Scientists case for the defence seems pretty damn sound.
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Yet, as the album drags on, you begin to waver a little, especially as you hit the home strait with "Worth The Wait" and the drum-heavy "What's The Word." The first is yelpy and excitable and could liteally have been yanked lock, stock and barrel from the "Rough Trade Shops Post Punk 01" collection, while "What's The Word" demonstrates that however visceral We Are Scientists' attack may be, ultimately they are treading a sonic path that's taken a fair pounding over the past 18 months and may well be severely potholed when they come this way again.
So ultimately you come away from "With Love And Squalor" feeling slightly uneasy. Yes, on the face of it, it's a perfectly fine album and the kind of thing to surely push all the right buttons in the short-term, yet in the long-run you begin to wonder whether this currently blissful formula will wear off with unfortunate side-effects. One hopes that when We Are Scientists' current elixir begins to fade, they will have the technology to come up with something even more potent.
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