I Concur's new single "Sabotka" with its darkly paranoid video is out on October 5th. The album from which it has been torn is scheduled for a fortnight later, just two years after I first hoped to have my copy.
A couple of years, a couple of weeks? In the world of craftsmanship and serious intent inhabited by I CONCUR, it seems that days and months are there for grinding down to basic elements and purifying into stable oxides to withstand long winters. The bloody audience can wait. Yorkshire style. The themes, defiantly and definitely, are of long, stubborn relationships between narrow-eyed heroes and an inhospitable physical and politically violent world. Making their songs into a near-perfect classic album was bound to take a while.
James Kenosha has done another brilliant producer's job of letting a very good band sound just as they imagine themselves to be - the hardest trick of all. I Concur are a guitar band at heart. (with no disrespect intended to the accomplished rhythm section of Toby Page and James Brunger, without whom … etc - just hear them go on that single. A delight.) What I'm saying is that if you don’t play the album, at least once, at deafening volume with all your psyche following the guitars then you haven’t heard it right. Once you've done that, yes - go back an hear the lovely light touch that Brunger puts onto new song "Grandeur" (and is that a canary in the mix?) And all the other bits that are there to be treasured.
The mysterious, fragmentary stories are postmodern epics of lyrical refusal - "no negotiation , no debate! Build around me!" And lots more. But the guitar parts shape the emotional tone and provide the permanent ground for everything else. They are metallic: hammering, ringing, grinding, glinting and sparkling. More metal than Donning ton's excess. It's the sound of bronze, copper and gold and the ringing mass of great iron rails and wheels, all put down in the famous Bridlington studio in whole-band performances with no fancy manipulation and only the lightest use of overlaid parts. (You are playing this LOUD, aren't you?). Tim Hann and Chris Woolford coax the guttural reverberations from the wound ridges of lower strings with meticulous accuracy and let the echoes growl beneath the bright glitter of higher notes. There's so much to listen to. So much going on, and always another great surprise to look forward to.
|
The outstanding final track "Exits Are Blockades" is where all the rage and focused perfection come to a head. The opening is almost gentle, with guitars shifting their countours every few bars. About half way in they almost drop out altogether before coming back even stronger, then pause for a lonely entry on a dangerously overloaded, quiet strum that gets hammered with bright, brilliant strokes into a breathtaking rush of crescendo. And stops. The silence that follows is immense. It's a classic moment - don’t spoil it by rushing there. There's a logic to the whole album - it works very well as a whole piece, and the final drama is worth the investment of a full 40 minutes of close attention.
There is so much to enjoy in the thunder and rain of notes that I want to be your geeky friend pointing out all the great bits - now! now! This bit … hear it? But you can find them: there's one every eight bars at least. And the songs themselves are so strong that they could be done with a ukulele, never mind all this sturm und drang.
If you have heard some of the track list before - or seen them at gigs, be very happy that these are all fresh recordings with richer sounds and a brighter energy. New songs like "Your Words Your Dialect" (with it's Grand Canyon breadth and depth of sound) are fully matured quality material. This is a band who started well and who are on a rising creative surge with a very accomplished debut album.
Track listing
Iterate This
Sobotka
Grandeur
Lucky Jack
Able Archer
Build Around Me
Oblige
Your Words, Your Dialect
Decimal Places
Exits Are Blockades
www.iconcur.co.uk
|
