The internet. Millions upon millions upon billions of websites. And yet type in "Watcher" and "Into The Woods", and you get four-hundred about the cult horror film "A Watcher In The Woods" released in 1980 by Disney and five other review websites talking about how hard it is to find information about this band. And with this opening paragraph, the vicious circle continues. The Last.fm word is that this is Watcher's sophomore album (after a self-titled debut), although this normally reliable site rather let's itself down almost immediately by listing the top tracks for this week as "Dr. Dre". So one rather clever user obviously listened to the Dr. Dre's "The Watcher" with the meta-tags reversed. Anyway, leaving behind slightly confused Last.fm users for the moment, let's abandon any hope for promotional material, usually dire in any case, and move straight onto sliding the CD into the player.
The opening salvo of "Halloween" and "Wrong Number" initially paint Watcher as a rather standard melodic, albeit melancholic, rock band. The vocals, particularly on the line "There's a boy in San Jose/he's looking for a girl in Sacramento" on "Halloween" and jagged guitar stabs beg for Interpol comparisons, whilst the driving, minimalist approach on "Wrong Number" feels like a piano-propelled The Strokes. However, any premature dismissals of the band as simply emotional indie rock by numbers are a bit...well, premature.
Track three, "St. Jean", pulls out some rather pleasing male-female interwoven vocals, and the almost percussive piano adds urgency, particularly to the swells and crescendos that blossom out of the hearteningly solid percussion.
"Into The Woods" is frighteningly reminiscent of Julian Casablancas, a soulful baritone without the sneer or drawl. Indeed, the middle tracks are a little game of audio "I Spy: the best of the Noughties", the culmination of which is "Basements", an extremely rich, rather lovely track of orchestral rock (not too unlike The Arcade Fire). A rumbling piano, rolling drums and brooding non-lyric vocals open the track. The build-up is patient. Baroque violins pitch and soar, melding with trumpet counter-harmonies and melodies, whilst Ben Coe's vocals become urgent and not a little bit impassioned. The jittery post-punk of "Gotta Get Out" takes a step further back in time. The throbbing bass and stark piano chords channel the infectious, nervous energy of Joy Division's "Transmission", albeit in a far more polished manner. Unfortunately, the latter tracks, including "Rodeo" and "Handshake", delve back into the rather generic emotional rock, much in the vein of another American band, Levy.
|
A less careful reviewer might lump them in with the other 21st century post-punk revivalists, such as Interpol and Editors, without a second thought. Whilst they probably don't have the songs to compete with these two heavyweights (and it's probably safe to call them that now), they burn with a similar intensity and show occasional flashes of a similar skitty energy. Then there is "Basement", in which they settle for a fuller, more orchestral sound, infused with baroque flourishes and rich textures that are surprising upon initial listen. It's just a shame that this direction isn't followed for the rest of the album. Although they occasionally seem reluctant to leave the well-trodden "emotional indie" path, there are enough atmospheric peaks of interest to maintain them through the thirty-eight minutes or so on the album.
www.myspace.com/watchermusic
|
