2007

New Rave, they called it. One of the scenes created by the NME in order to sell issues and tickets to the yearly awards tour, by lumping together a bunch of similar sounding but unrelated acts. This year it was the turn of a group of artists who fused indie rock with acid house and rave sounds, adopting the fashions that went along with that. To be quite honest, the only ones who matter - and had any success - were Klaxons. Littering their rave-rock with philosophical, metaphysical, psychedelic, and science fiction referencing lyrics, dressed in day-glo garb, and making bonkers music videos, it would have been hard for them to not be a hit. They'd surfaced the year before with a couple of independent releases, of which "Atlantis To Interzone" was one of my regular downloads. Another single, "Magick", cracked the Top 30 in the latter part of 2006, the band now signed to Polydor. When "Golden Skans" was released early in 2007, it raised my expectations for their first album, and i was not disappointed. Myths Of The Near Future was a collection of completely mad, melodic pop/dance/indie missives: acid house sirens, dance rhythms, angular guitars, Beach Boys harmonies, and weird lyrics. The previous singles were all included, as was a storming cover of the Grace dance classic "It's Not Over Yet" which gave them another hit. The opening "Two Receivers", the tripped out "Isle Of Her", and the layered vocals of "As Above, So Below" provided some depth and pointed a possible way forward musically. It was one of that years best albums, along with the third from a band with a very different tone. Interpol had appeared around the turn of the millennium, ploughing a furrow of moody, angular post-punk influenced indie rock. Predictably, comparisons with Joy Division, Magazine, and early Echo & The Bunnymen were heaped upon them, not least because of Paul Banks' rather stentorian vocals. They were lumped in with the new post-punk brigade out around the same time, but Interpol were far more interesting than that. Their songs carried a subtly arch and dark sexuality, the music had a groove to it, and Banks' singing would betray an emotional ache. Their lyrics were often opaque and open to interpretation, but occasionally had hints of the personal and romantic. The band had a mystique about them, not giving away much about themselves in interviews, and saying little onstage. Their more melodic second album Antics had given them a boost in pop and actual hits, and a more widescreen sound with bassist Carlos Dengler adding keyboards. Our Love To Admire took that one step further, with songs that didn't just groove and smoulder, but soared. Majestic is the only way to describe opening track "Pioneer To The Falls", Paul Banks voice developing into a soulful croon, found elsewhere on "Rest My Chemistry". The groove was still to be found on lead single "The Heinrich Manuever", and "No I In Threesome". The pounding "Mammoth" adds another edge to their sound. Subtle orchestrations are added throughout. For me it is their finest hour: Carlos D's departure afterwards left a hole in their sound that they have yet to fill. 

 

Although i would enter my goth phase within a year or two, i always had an interest in the Mod subculture, one that my lack of knowledge or self-confidence put the brakes on for a few years. But a mod revival-influenced band who came storming out of Coventry pointed the way to my future identity: The Enemy. Their Jam-influenced indie rock may have been a tad cliched and derivative, but by God they had some tunes, and tunes with balls. Defiantly working-class rants about the futility of the working week, Mcjobs, and small town life. There's a lot of anger and bitterness in the songs on their debut album We'll Live And Die In These Towns - anthemic tracks like "It's Not O.k.", "Had Enough" , "Pressure", and "Away From Here", but also flashes of hope: as the brass band and string-laden title track says, "don't let it drag you down" . The music may not have been original, but it had enough swagger to give them a number one album and two top ten hits. 

Other albums of note were Jamie T's Panic Prevention, his cockney indie/hiphop style very much influenced by Ian Dury, reggae, dub and rap. "Sheila" was all over the radio that summer, a tale of a ladette on the lash.

Manic Street Preachers returned with Send Away The Tigers, an album of anthemic rock songs aimed squarely at the charts and heralded by "Your Love Alone Is Not Enough", an infectious pop-rock duet with Nina Persson of The Cardigans that lyrically was about their absent former bandmate (and chief lyricist/artistic director) Richey James Edwards, a subject they have frequently returned to. After the keyboard heavy "elegiac pop" of their previous album Lifeblood it was seen as a return to form, and both album and lead single both hit the runners up position in their respective charts. I saw them perform at Nottingham Rock City on the tour to promote the album and, as always, they played a storming gig. Send Away The Tigers is a decent, if commercial, set of songs, although i wouldn't describe it as one of my favourite MSP albums. 

Through a workmate i had started discovering a lot of Goth-related music, much of it in the Futurepop and Electronic Body Music genres as well as more traditional Goth artists. This would ultimately lead to my becoming a Goth for a few years. One of the top bands in the Futurepop and EBM fields was VNV Nation, The brainchild of Dublin-born Ronan Jackson, they're one of those acts who are "big in Germany" , but little known outside of that. I was first introduced to their 2005 album Matter + Form which contains one of their most outstanding and popular songs, the epic "Perpetual" , which they regularly close their live shows with. Their 2007 album Judgement was just as good, opening with the serene instrumental "Prelude", the muscular beats and layered synths soon come to dominate an album that, for all its darkness and meditations on loss, war, and hard times, is shot through with hope that things will get better. There are some great songs on Judgement - the widescreen soundscapes of "The Farthest Star", "Testament" , and "Descent", not to mention the heartfelt "Illusion" , are all worth checking out.

 

I was introduced to varying styles of dark electronic music around this time, from the intelligent sci-fi noir of mind.in.a.box and the Futurepop of Syrian, to the more industrial "aggrotech" of Combichrist and KMFDM. Some of these acts i still like and listen to, despite my no longer being part of the Goth scene that introduced me to them. 

 One of the bands that had set me off down a path of darker, "gothic" music - Finnish band HIM - released an album in this year that threw off their recent commercial sound and headed into heavier territory. Venus Doom was a dense sounding collection of songs that were probably designed to scare off any Emos or teenybopper goths they had acquired in the previous few years. 

 

One of the tracks may have graced the soundtrack to that years blockbuster live-action Transformers movie, but that was as light as it got: the songs were largely written about frontman Ville Valo's deterioration into alcohol abuse and its effect on his personal life, and his subsequent recovery. Uneasy listening, to borrow a title from one of their later compilations.