“When
I was singing and writing this and workin’ with her, I was
visualizing all the people of my age group; I’m singing to them.
I’m saying, ‘Here I am now, how are you? How’s your relationship
going — did you get through it all? Wasn’t the ’70’s a drag
(laughter)?
Here we are, let’s try to make the ’80s good, y’know?’ It’s
not out of our control. I still believe in love, I still believe in
peace, I still believe in positive thinking. Where there’s life,
there’s hope.”
And
suddenly, just like Lennon recording Just Like Starting Over, it's
ten years later. The people who found each other on Myspace have
grown up. Hair a little thinner, waist a little thicker, we've moved
from crumbling flats to crumbling houses with a little garden. Our
jobs and commutes grow more stressful. The indiepop songs about
librarians are now DIY pop songs about identity politics. We have
cats and kids to look after and our heroes have revealed themselves
as racists and sex pests.The daily horror show of politics, which
grows more ludicrous and utterly hopeless by the minute, has taken
over the social media which was once full of book and record
recommendations. Our self deprecating bonhomie has become polite
panic. Modern life brings us closer to our nearest but further away
from each other. These are nervous times.
So
what to believe in? Well, love of course. And music. Our desire for
new music may dim, but our need for good music does not. And friends,
our patient wait for a record dedicated to those too old for The
Courteeners and too proud for the Shinnne On festival is finally
over.
If
Destroyed True, the Understudies second LP is a perfectly times
masterpiece. An indiepop Unknown Pleasures that instead of following
obvious paths carves it's own way, leaving the listener mapless and
optionless but to listen to and try to pursue. It's a proper album
this, a record not to chuck on whilst doing the ironing but to sit
down and absorb with the attention afforded a subtitled film.
Millennial
Generational tension is covered calmly and deftly in Sweet Tea (Dance
halls fall into the sea/I feel it coming/make a pot of sweet tea/and
watch the city capsize)
and Helsinki (Please
don't make me take another selfie),
the latter coming across like Radiohead's Planet Telex for the forty
something, and in the dark and satisfying Grousebeat (It's
like Phil Collins writing songs about the homeless/I'm not a rich pop
star/just a casual observer).
But
where there is darkness there is light. Precious Heart and the almost
startlingly intimate New Dress are no messing about straight up love
songs, giving lie to the Motown notion that songs about love must be
about the rush of new romance or the lows of a relationship coming
apart. These songs, cleverly and correctly, offer the view that the
calm of the centre of a relationship given time to blossom and bloom
is to be to be cherished. You can't write songs like this without
living them first.
And
it's not only Brian Bryden's songs that have matured into something
wonderful. The band (fairly recently and hurriedly assembled on début
LP Let Desire Guide Your Hand) seem to have finally, FINALLY,
realised how good they are and absolutely reek of verve and
confidence. Thom Allott's songs are
also a welcome addition and fit in effortlessly. Past Addresses is as
calm as the ocean and as troubled as a storm, and if you squint a bit
sounds like a Tindersticks song. Slow Train is a beautiful and
fitting closer but it's the tensely wired Wolves which really pushes
the band to new boundaries, it sounds like Delicatessen and The Veils
and I almost guarantee you it's their favourite to play live.
I
once predicted this LP (then unrecorded) would be album of the year.
I was wrong. It turns out it's an LP of a generation. With melodies
to die for and lyrics to tattoo on your arm, it's a masterpiece and
proof (if needed) that faith in hope in music is seldom misplaced. If
Destroyed True makes the Understudies the most mis-monikered band
since Extreme and Eternal. They've lit the torch of quality which
others must follow. Clutch this record to your heart.
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