John Peel favourites EXPERIMENTAL POP BAND return with album number six, toning down the throwaway playfulness of previous work to create a cohesive set of songs that delight on first listen and astound thereafter.
Not that band leader Davey Woodward has become a humourless creature. The ex-leader of 80s indie band The Brilliant Corners salvaged 'Vertigo' Who’s Next style from an aborted concept album, and the proposed title “Boxing Gloves Versus The Crayon Set” sounds like it could have been even more bonkers than Pete Townshend’s failed Lifehouse project. After scrapping the majority of recorded material, Woodward took his band into the studio to bash out new versions of songs in a swift two week period, and an energetic fizz shivers through the record.
Especially on Vertigo’s first half which sounds like British Sea Power carving through Blur’s Great Escape. The band chew up bouncy Brit-Pop riffs and spit them out with a world weary shrug, backed up with a horn section and sci-fi synthesisers. Vertigo revels in its sense of aloofness, casting a disapproving glance at the ways of the world whilst still being cocksure enough to have a good time doing it. First single LITTLE THINGS has already gathered support from 6 Music and it’s easy to see why. It’s one of those perfect pop singles where everything just falls into place. The insistent punky down strummed guitars, the effortless three note brass refrain, the Ringo-esque no frills drumming. They all fit perfectly. Woodward’s lyrics are beyond simple (“Little things that get you down, how about me coming around?”) but when you hear the knowledge spilling out of his worn vocal they immediately bury into your soul. By the time he reaches the circular chorus, surrendering to hopelessness whilst reaching for his higher register (“The gossips will gossip and no one is ever going to stop it”), the result is unsettling and uplifting. It’s like waking up on a mate’s sofa covered in sick but secretly impressed at last night’s antics.
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They very nearly reach these heights again with first-half closer Zed Alley. Here Woodward drifts through a city landscape that means nothing (“These pretty girls that walk these streets no longer interest me”) dragged along by an almost Status Quo style groove and one-note Velvets piano. After a minute he succumbs to his own sense of contentment, bursting out with the gloriously dumb hook “It’s so so so so so serene”, transforming the pissed off, blocked up stutter of My Generation into something utterly heartening. And more importantly, utterly believable.
The album’s second half drops the fuzzy grasshopper guitars and space-age flourishes for keyboard based orchestration. Although the more staccato approach never matches Vertigo’s blistering first half, the instrumentation brings Woodward’s lyrics to the fore. And there are some absolute gems: “I could touch your golden hair every single night but that doesn’t mean I love you”, “Your frozen cat is watching us from the balcony”, and “Introverted lonely boys who want to be Pete Shelley watching girls whilst on speed”. These are all worth the price of admission alone.
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