Since the last time I bore witness to the live spectacle of I Like Trains - I think it was around eighteen months ago - they appear to have executed two fundamental changes.
First of all they are no longer "iliketrains", having dropped the single word/all lower case name. This is no bad thing. Like "!!!", it doesn't make it easy when some uninitiated friend demands to know who you're listening to and you are obliged to truthfully reply "Chk Chk Chk" and sound rather quite mad in the process. "I Like Trains" is much easier and will go down better with music fans who have real issues with singlewordsthatarealllowercaseandrunintooneanother.
The second big change is a live one: they've dropped the trains! Well, the movies of trains that used to adorn the curtain behind the band in their shows. Having attended the legendary Happiness Stan's clubnight at Turnmills Nightclub more than a reasonable number of times in the very late 90s, I'm a sucker for the combination of music and movies so this saddens me somewhat. But I will forgive them.
Instead of movies of trains, we are subjected to a single, solitary roaming strobe accompanied by an atomspheric rumble that recalls the ocean. Y'see this is more a case of I Like Boats tonight, as head train David Martin helms the stage of The Relentless Garage in Highbury wearing a fetching navy commander's jacket (and matching seafarer's beard).
New tracks mingle amongst favourites from the wonderful debut "Elegies to Lessons Learnt", and upcoming single "Sea of Regrets" is rolled out to an spellbound crowd. It's been nearly two years since their debut LP and the new stuff hints at a progressive shift in their sound to something even more enchanting and immediate.
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There's a quiet magic at work within their songs; a hyperintelligent sensibilty that confirms them an extremely erudite band, well within the tradition of literate, dark English pop music. I would go so far as proclaiming that they're assured a place as of one of our unsung national musical treasures, sharing an attic room with the likes of Luke Haines and Lawrence Hayward - musical artists who are very much a product of this country.
Before all this, Nottingham's Swimming succeeded in priming the crowd for the headliners. I feel compelled to mention them for the very fact that they remind me of the late great Mansun - if they still existed - in a post-Muse world (but the early-years pre-prog Mansun of Take it Easy Chicken).
Songs like "Panthalassa" take Faith No More's "Epic" and fuse it with Curve's "Ten Little Girls". If I'm being heavy on the proper nouns, it's because Swimming's influences really are worn firmly on sleeves - and yet there's something so weirdly attractive about their sound and the feelings it creates in me that I'll be back for second, no doubt.
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