Your reviewer was initially a little wary of THE DUKE SPIRIT'S staying power. Yes, they turned in a breathtakingly edgy early salvo with genius single "Dark Is Light Enough", but live they seemed a little underwhelming when W&H first caught up with them. Sure, blonde ice maiden singer Liela Moss exuded sass and star quality but the band themselves were interchangeable and - more worryingly - their 40 minute set was heavy on volume but noticeably light on hooks and tunes. Two steps forward and three back where this writer was concerned.
Since that time, though, these Londoners seem to have been doing some important groundwork. They've released a further string of singles ("Cuts Across The Land", "Lion Rip" and the recent "Love Is An Unfamiliar Name") which have made like consistently excellent brood-athons and - despite the NME's patronage and the 'bright young things' rep that comes with it - have actually begun to sound like a band who might just be in this for the duration.
So "Cuts Aross The Land" is crunch time for The Duke Spirit, and hearteningly it's the sound of a band growing teeth and getting their shit together just at the right time to convince over the distance. Yes, the singles remain reliably fierce ("Lion Rip" especially still sounds like the epitome of bruising urgency), but - crucially - they're don't dwarf the remainder these days, and indeed "Cuts Across The Land" is as good a dark and adrenaline-soaked old skool indie guitar album as you'll hear all year.
Just to show how out of step with the identikit post-punkers and East End urchins The Duke Spirit are, "Cuts Across The Land" actually mostly echoes some of the best New York sounds of yore. Songs like "Stubborn Stitches" and especially "Win Your Love" are redolent of Sonic Youth's landmark "Dirty" album, not least in the souped-up guitars and tricksy time changes, while the way Toby Butler's bass and the twin guitars bleed into the red during the nigh-on carnal "Win Your Love" recalls that album's spooked centrepiece "Sugar Kane". The excellent "Darling, You're Mean", meanwhile, emits a fragrant, Velvets-y narcotic fug, with Liela giving it loads of feisty vixen when she sings: "You're trying to hurt me, but I won't let go - I'm so cheap." It's bathed in a glow from the warm organ, but suitably explodes when they bring on the chorus.
|
Elsewhere, the Dukes show off an impressive desire to experiment that wasn't obviously present before. The cyclical "Hello To The Floor", for example, is a sensual chug with groovy tambourines and some wonderfully descriptive dirty blues harp; "Bottom Of The Sea" is a slide guitar-heavy stalk leading the band into a dangerous blue bayou and the skewed and chiming lullabye that is "Lovetones" is driven by Olly Betts' impressive, aarythmic drumming. All are notable deviations, though perhaps none quite match up to the closing "Red Weather" where the band pull out all the stops and visit all points between languid swagger and full-blown crescendo. In simple terms, 'a bit of a showstopper' just about sums it up.
"Cuts Across The Land", then, was worth waiting for after all. It's one of those (actually quite rare) occurences where a highly-tipped band actually deliver on the promise of their singles and create a convincing, resonant whole. It's no major stylistic reinvention of the wheel, but it's nonetheless a positive boon for anyone who loves their guitars dark and dense and their songs delivered by a feistily charismatic soon-to-be indie pin up.
|
