« Will you be my friend? | Main | Random Cool Thing... »
February 01, 2007
These Pale Britons
Not much has been said about young Brit art punks These New Puritans on this side of the puddle, in blog or print. They've gotten a nice chunk of press in their rainy native land, but that doesn't seem to translate into American press very easily anymore. In this case it's surprising, as the Southend lads (and lass) are all teenagers, which is always easy to slip into a lead paragraph (like so). They also have the most winningly inscrutable website this side of Thom Yorke, and are brought to our attention by the always ahead of the curve Angular Recording Corporation. The same ARC who first unleashed Bloc Party, Klaxons, and the Long Blondes on the world. Have we all become so jaded to the hype mongering of the UK music press that we've begun to completely ignore it in favor of the hype mongering of our own homegrown blogs? Even when other indicators all point to a certain degree of quality? Is their taste and writing so much worse?
Let's look at the press clip that requires the least amount of effort to find, shall we?
The NME said, "These New Puritans erupt with psychopathic rythms and distorted basslines that explode in a dark yet accessible notion of artistic pop. Frankly, it would be odious to compare them to anyone, such is their brilliance."
Now that's a bit silly because this is a good band who are still just starting out, and silly because it's obvious that they sound an awful lot like the Fall. I don't fault the band for it, I mean there have been absurdly good bands who have started from a Fall aping launchpad. It's certainly better than hanging your hat on the Libertines as the be all, end all of modern music as more than one NME darling has in the past few years. It's just dumb not to mention an influence when a comparison is (for once) helpful and fairly accurate. That error is doubled by claiming that we've never heard anything like this in the history of the world. On balance though, it's not sooo egregious. Well trafficked blogs do worse every day of the week, as you well know. You've gotta look at the other factors, people!
Anyway, bewildered rant over...
These New Puritans - "Elvisss"
This track, which defiantly proclaims itself to not be about Elvis in it's first second, is almost prime for dancing, as confused and paranoid as that dance might be. It's got a nice bark-chorus-bark structure, and a bassline you could find in the dark. A rash of handclaps erupts in the song's back end, which is always the sign of a decent party. I have no clue what singer Jack Barnett is going on about, but he seems convicted at least. "0-8-hundred" I think is the closing refrain? Whatever, man.
From the scattered bits and pieces of audio I've been able to cobble together, it seems like the kids are on the verge of surpassing this likable but basic style in the very near future. Maybe some kind Brit might post it when they do, but considering that this is perfectly good and almost completely untouched, that's definitely not a guarantee.
These New Puritans - "Elvisss"
The video, stylishly crafted by Discordo Design, is, like the song, just cool enough to skate by. Straight performance footage, but maybe not for a crowd. Leaving the feedback on as performance art just for the camera crew shows committment, though. The lone porcelain girl in the band photos is absent, so maybe this was early enough that she had not yet been conned into full time membership. As much as you can mock the stone faced seriousness of it all, there is a certain herky jerky art je ne sais quoi. The relentless pace is matched by the twitchiness of the vid, at least. I assume that when budgets and notoriety grow, we'll have some serious University film theses on our hands. On that day, we shall all rejoice...
// These New Puritans - website
// These New Puritans - MySpace
Posted by Jeff Klingman at February 1, 2007 02:50 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.merryswankster.com/movabletype/mt-tb.cgi/655
Comments
Glad to see them getting some well deserved attention. I'm from London and find this band very refreshing in comparison to the other bands popping up. I think they are recording an album now, if not, then another EP. After having released an EP entitled Now Pluvial. That video i don't think was ever meant as an actual video for the song but rather as a piece for this photographer from their home town. It is indeed a cool video, i love their artistic vision and aesthetic.
Posted by: Ed at February 2, 2007 11:31 AM
