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Volume CXXXIII, Number 1 |
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Listen to The Music
TED REINERT
ORIENT STAFF
In a nutshell, one of the most interesting debuts of the year. The Music, composed of four lads from the Leeds area who just graduated high school, sounds like the love child of Led Zeppelin and the Chemical Brothers. The band makes loud rock that moves and is easy to dance to, a frighteningly rare phenomenon these days. I caught them on the small stage at Lollapalooza this summer. Singer Robert Harvey, who looks like a petite Robert Plant and has an appropriately high-pitched voice, enthusiastically fronts the wall of sound, breaking into outrageous dances when he's not singing.
The band's self-titled debut was released last fall in England and in February in the U.S. Its ten tunes range from hyper ("Float") to spacey ("Human") but always keep a strong beat. The opening track, "The Dance," is loud, measured chaos that degenerates into what sounds like malfunctioning speakers. Lead single "Take the Long Road and Walk It" is more typical and actually has a bit of a twang to it. "The Truth Is No Words" and "The People" are super catchy and excellent introductions to the band's sound, with deep grooves coming from the instrumentalists and Harvey wailing. The Music shows its bluesier side on "Turn Out the Light." Harvey does his best "baby, baby, baby" thing and the song builds towards an excited climax.
"Getaway" is maybe The Music's best track. A chiming intro sets an appropriately anxious mood, which is added to layer by layer. The wailing at the end of the song and the closing guitar part are wonderful.
The lumbering epic "Disco" isn't exactly that, though disco definitely holds some influence on this band. "Disco" is the most dynamic song on the album, from slow intro to a more typical, catchy Music tune to about 20 seconds of Harvey letting out a series of sharply punctuated shrieks.
The album ends with the very pretty "Too High" (it's a mountain that's "too high to climb," not the band members). The slowed pace allows the guitar to stick its neck out and play some lovely licks before all the instruments gets wrapped up in the climax.
The biggest criticism of the Music is that their lyrics are nothing special. But this really doesn't distract. Harvey's voice is like another instrument. And the music itself is pretty damn good. Hence the band name.
And so another enjoyable psychedelic British group lands on our shores.
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