BOMBAY BICYCLE CLUB – I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose
(Island)
Bombay Bicycle Club are the other group that early myspace samples had led me to believe would be a band to watch, and now that the album is finally here I am glad to be able to say that my faith in them has been justified. When I first heard them I lumped them in the emerging twee-core sound of Los Campesinos! and Cajun Dance Party, but over the ensuing months their sound has been beefed up, and despite their youth they can now rival the more experienced bands. ‘Emergency Contraception Blues’ is a case in point, as although it starts off with strummed acoustic guitars, it doesn’t take long for the rest of the band to kick in and deliver a short instrumental full of thrashing guitars and pounding drums. ‘Lamplight’ keep up the power but adds in Jack Steadman’s quavering vocals and a catchy chorus. ‘Evening / Morning’ turns the guitars up even louder and delivers some crunching riffs in amongst this great little indie rocker. Title track of their current EP ‘Dust On The Ground’ is next, and for this one they slow the pace down a bit and return to their indie roots, with jangling guitars to the fore. ‘Ghost’ first appeared on their ‘How We Are’ EP back in 2007, and is more of the same classic indie, but for ‘Always Like This’ they add in a funky bassline and some ambient noodles for the intro to make a much more confident track. ‘Magnet’ is another great indie rocker, with revved up guitars which gradually ease down into a gentle coda to close the song. ‘Cancel On Me’ is another escapee from that 2007 EP, and so the heavy guitars take a back seat for a while, before ‘Autumn’ offers the first change of pace, with a slower song that adds a touch of electronics to the mix, and even though the band can’t resist letting loose in the middle it is still an effective stab at conjuring up young love. ‘The Hill’ is a good mix of thrashing guitars and a subtle guitar solo, making an interesting juxtaposition in an otherwise pretty straight-forward song, and ‘What If’ segues nicely using the same rhythmic guitars to introduce another rollicking track. The album closes with the totally out of character ‘The Giantess’, being an acoustic piece, with Steadman’s vocals buried in effects, and the down-beat tone so different to what has gone before that you can’t help but be taken in by its beauty. A couple more like this might have given the album a sense of maturity, whereas at the moment it sounds like a bunch of kids racing out of their teens and suddenly pulling up sharp when they hit the big two zero. This is another album that has not disappointed, as I liked them two years ago when they were spotty indie kids, and I like them now with their heavier sound, but ‘The Giantess’ points to a direction that could kick them into the big time, and so their next stage could be even better.
