If the name Chris Devotion & the Expectations sounds like a fictional band in a feelgood film set in either the heyday of rock ‘n’ roll, or the late 1970s when a young man, inspired by Elvis Costello decides to play music as an outlet for his frustrations, and with the help of his rag-tag looking but tight as hell backing band takes on the world, then you’d not be a million miles off the mark, especially with the second scenario.
Chris Devotion – and I suspect his birth certificate carries a name about as showbiz as Declan MacManus – began his musical career in Glasgow before hacking round the nation’s less salubrious venues and garnering some recognition and respect along the way. Then, more recently, Devotion hooked up with The Expectations, (described as ‘a trio of suited-and-booted thrashers’), and ‘Amalgamation and Capital’ is the resultant fruit of this well-matched union.
If Buddy Holly had heard The Ramones, he’d have probably sounded like this: Devotion has a keen ear for a punchy pop tune with the added impact of the power of punk-edged rock ‘n’ roll. Think ‘Pump it Up’ . Think pissed off. Think 16 tracks in 36 minutes, that golden rule of keeping it brief, the classic radio pop song of two and a half to three minutes. It’s hard to imagine these thoughts weren’t at the fore of Chris’ mind when he penned this set.
Unlike so many contemporary releases, ‘Amalgamation and Capital’ feels like an album and not just a bunch of songs. Devotion engages politically without resorting to dumb sloganeering or witless fist-waving petulance, and combines the personal and the social to create a potent (Molotov) cocktail that actually feels dangerous, and above all, credible.
From the get-go, on the choppy ‘A Modest Refusal’, it’s clear we’re dealing with a songwriter of wit and brain as well as musical brawn (the title is a play on Jonathan Swift’s seminal satire ‘A Modest Proposal’) as Devotion takes a few sharp swipes at the coalition government. Elsewhere, ‘It’s No Secret’ nicks the riff from The Fall’s ‘15 Ways’ and adds melody and adrenaline to transformative effect. Then there’s the tongue-in cheek romp of ‘Laura Was Right’, which opens with the classic line ‘She said it was big!’. Chris explains, ‘I love those ‘50s songs where they sing something that sounds innocuous but it’s actually really dirty. Well, this is a song that at the start sounds really dirty, but is actually about something innocuous.’ Regardless, it’s got balls, and is a belting, raucous little number that kicks like a mule.
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‘I Need Your Touch’ is choppy rock ‘n’ roll, and there’s a rare intensity to the call and response of ‘You’ve Got It All’. ‘Surveying the Young Professionals’ and ‘Pinhole Suit’ (which is a roaring fireball of a song) offer incisive social critique delivered with the power of a battering ram, while ‘The Girl is Leaving’ is a classic slice of guitar-driven pop‘n’roll of a timeless vintage and again clocks in around the two and a half minute mark.
All in, ‘Amalgamation and Capital’ is a triumph of discipline and serious toil: there’s no excess here, the fat’s been trimmed to leave an album that’s lean, concise and as tight as hell, while at the same time demonstrating that amidst the morass of the punk acts that play dumb and are genuinely dumb, there’s much to be said for the power of literate rebellion. Anger may be an energy, but it’s even more potent if it can be channelled and expressed with clarity.
Chris Devotion and the Expectations Online
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