When it became clear in the Spring of 2008 that ¡FORWARD, RUSSIA! had made a definitively perfect album, sense demanded that only fresh starts could follow. "Life Processes", on Cooking Vinyl was a sparkling, unsurpassable assertion of the explosive aesthetic that the band had forged. For every exciting shriek on "Give Me a Wall", "life Processes" had a sustained roar. Going back round the block for another attempt at self-sustaining success (with its attendant recording, touring and schmoozing) wasn't really an option. Sam Nichols in particular has a restless creativity that doesn't use the repeat button. Whiskas was moving on to new projects (and likewise the others in the band).
Among the projects that followed he set to with solo material that eventually emerged with this year's summer album "this is broken lines" (lower case intended). HONOUR BEFORE GLORY was the name on the banner that streamed above the small army of elite Leeds hero-musicians who played, sang, recorded, mastered and decorated the tracks and live performances. Whiskas wrote and produced the album and played all its instruments (bar drums by Simon Fogal and violin by Hannah Watt). Sam Airey, Rose Alexander, Jon Foulger, David Martin, Francis McCrossan and Fran Rodgers provided extra vocals. Guy Bannister and Dan Skevington worked on recordings and Tom Woodhead mastered them.
The list of names is significant. For those outside the exceptionally rich music communities of Leeds who might not be sure, that is a formidable set of people, whose names should be noted more widely than they are. It expresses a determined cooperative ethic that has been to whiskas's great credit and many others' great benefit.
The album's introductory "Monochrome In Sunshine" has a ringing guitar with synth bass and an anthemic feel for big chord shifts. The instrumental ends in distant church organ sound, having previewed several of the album's recurring themes in its 2 minutes 37 seconds.
"Broken Bottles, Empty Hearts" has a similar guitar, but comes straight in with idiosyncratic multitracked vocals and a brisker tempo. One feature it shares with the whole album is a fascinating warehouse-of-sound effect that displays the large, the medium and the fragmentary in one acoustic space. Although there have been live performances it really couldn't work without the illusions that tight control of mixing and mastering can achieve. Lyrically it touches on recurrent themes of light and vision – a parallel set of concerns with appearance and reality.
"Breaker" has a slurred new rave intro that bursts out into a muscular stomp with a fuzzed backdrop. There is a sense of crowds pouring through city streets in determined waves of subdued multivocal. It's a song that brings out the way that the whole album manages to collect together so many strands of new music from the last decade or so. Whiskas is an inveterate fan of emerging music in many genres, and you can hear the syntheses in these tracks, pared and tuned to his own ambitions.
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The next track "Time" breaks the flow with a solitary synth sound and a distorted solo voice that sharpens the mood. There is lots of space in which the vocal starts and restarts in different accompanied combinations. "All we need is time" he cries: a hint of desperation from the heart of a busy man. It's followed by an instrumental fragment "They May Only Be Dafodils..." with an electronically modulated organ sound and a mysterious hint of anxiety.
The wilfully misspelt "Truely" is outstanding. It rings with echoes of Seattle or Portland, a scuzzy guitar and a solo intimate voice "You are everything to me". Then two voices tenderly and loosely chugging together with bass and drums "I wanna be everything to you" It's perfect grunge with a triumphant blast of extruded guitar and fragile emotionalism at the end.
"This Is Shattered Light" has big drums and a wider span of sound, with a searching theme and echoes of "Broken Bottles" and the eponymous refrain "we are broken lines" It rolls along like a train into the setting sun. "Maison" also has its semi-reprise, like a shifted echo from the introductory phrases of "Time" It's a collaged melody with a deep breathing pulse.
"Shadow Into" could be dance with a spinning intro, but the slower underlying tempo is chosen and at 3.05 a pool of latent melody opens into emotional intensity. This sound is as romantic as you're going to get from a rock and roll guitarist.
There's something compelling and paranoid about "Lions". Fuzzed bass and glitchy percussive synth exchange glances. Whiskas voice sounds more exposed than on any other track: "I just want to survive". His voice is a tentative instrument – well-respected in the production, without any attempt to disguise or remodel.
The final track "Forever" is a huge thing. It has a hypnotic 13 note guitar phrase that epitomises "dreaming and waiting for a silence" from the lyric. Whiskas's uncertain, unprocessed voice croons "I don't feel at all ... that it's been worth it" The track shifts in tempo and time signature towards a greater urgency and volume. The end has a long, careful dynamic, worthy of the best post rock mountain scalers.
It's an album to go back for if you never heard it, and to revisit if you blinked and missed its subtle power.
http://honourbeforeglory.bandcamp.com
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