The Fratellis
Here We Stand
Here We Stand
You’ve just risen to fame in an instant by becoming one of the biggest bands in the country (after selling one and a half million copies of your debut album worldwide) and you’ve just convinced almost everyone in your native country that Franz Ferdinand were just a phase (because suddenly your band is the best thing Scotland has to offer the world). What do you do?You generally decide to follow it up with another joyous ride of catchy tracks less than two years later that will have people wrestling to scrape the last copy off the shelves, and then dig deep into their pockets to come and see you live and go broke buying your merchandise. It seems The Fratellis can do just that with a click of their fingers. At the turn of the year, there was nothing so much as a whistle in the wind from the Glasgow-based 3-piece, yet a few months on, and they’ve released a new single and, this week, a second album to follow up their double platinum debut. ‘Here We Stand’ is bursting with life and colour in every corner, yet even after the third listen it’s not charging at me like an angry bull at a Texas rodeo.
When the band released ‘Chelsea Dagger’ back in August 2006, following the release of the Arctic Monkeys’ debut, something incredible happened - British rock-n-roll was truly back with a bang. Not since the days of Oasis, The Verve and Blur have songs been cheered from the terraces of football grounds up and down the country. Britain was bursting from the seams with indie bands and it felt amazing to see those bands gracing the top of the charts once more.
However, what Jon Fratelli and Co. have learnt as a band in the last 20 or so months can only be explained by listening to new single ‘Mistress Mabel’ and album opener ‘My Friend John’. Certainly, they are unmistakably “Fratellis” but is there really anything new about them that we’ve not heard already? What was exciting about the Arctics’ second outing was that Turner had found something new and different to say; about the world and society and everything about the evolving music scene at the end of 2006. Changes were occurring, with bands like Klaxons, New Young Pony Club and CSS updating those 80s new wave/punk sounds with house/electronica beats (that was unfortunately labelled “nu-Rave” - oh, how we can sit back now and thank Klaxons’ manager and the press for that one).
What is impressive about this album, however, is how this band has dropped the cheeky pre-Wombat lyrics and got stuck in with some proper guitar music. ‘Jesus Stole My Baby’ is an epic western tragedy; the sort of song you might hear in the background as aliens from Mars invade 18th Century America - for some strange reason in my mind, it works.
Other treats include down-and-dirty ‘Tell Me A Lie’ which shows what the band may have learned about the world of music - “He’s a liar, he’s a liar, and a good one at that“. It’s the closest thing that this album comes to their it-was-never-a-single-track, ‘Creeping Up The Backstairs’. ‘Acid Jazz Singer’ passes by without much notice, but the real gem of this album is locked inside sub-six-minute track ‘Lupe Brown’ with its Clash-esque riffs and Doherty vocals. However, with the penultimate song, ‘Milk And Money’, I can’t help but think the journey has finished before it’s even begun as it tamely closes things off.
As a self-confessed indie maniac (2003-2007) I feel really let down by this record - it’s probably the first record out of my favourite British bands’ follow-ups recently that I’m genuinely disappointed with. I do have to give them credit however for trying out a variety of new sounds, but if you’re going to do that then the lyrical style should follow suit or you’re just shooting yourself in the foot. On the other hand, despite how much I’ve knocked this album, there is no question that it will sell like burgers and stars & stripes on Independence Day.
6/10
1 comment:
Congrats on joining the SD team dude!
Sid
www.musicliberation.blogspot.com
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