The Music - 'The Music' (Hut)
5/5
By: Matt Tomiak
Phew. I mean, wow. OK, let's take a few things slowly...
'The Music' is officially the most confident, competent debut by a British band since 'Definitely Maybe'. And fittingly, just as Oasis annihilated grunge with their tales of Feeling Supersonic and Living Forever, so young Leeds quartet The Music have come to destroy the established fashionable scene they see before them; 'The Music' effortlessly shreds to pieces every single American identikit, Strokes-lite garage-rock act.
Indeed, it's all down to the fact that everything about this band is just so perfect: their utter disregard for perceived notions of 'cool' (lest we forget the foursome refused to play in London until as late as possible); their decision to release the chart-ineligible (but still unconditionally brilliant) EPs, 'You Might As Well Try to F**k Me' and 'The People'; their outspoken honesty about how they feel life really is; even the mesmerising, fantastically original artwork on the record-sleeves; and the fact they're all barely out of their teens. Altogether, it's truly a winning concoction.
The shortest track on this, their first ever LP - as produced by Jim Abiss of DJ Shadow notoriety - reaches but the four and a half-minute mark. However, despite the figure, there's certainly no bloated, pretentious noodling in evidence here - and not once do things get boring, the sprawling, trance-like soundtrack rarely serving as anything less than hypnotic.
By now, you must be familiar with 'Take The Long Road and Walk It' - and, if not, you're missing out on one of the greatest singles of modern times: a cyclone of obscenely precocious psychedelia, magnificently completed by Rob Harvey's incredible, wailing vocals and Adam Nutter's majestic guitar playing.
'Second Coming'-era Stone Roses and early-Verve may prove obvious reference points throughout the rest of the material - distinctly revealed within 'Human', in particular - yet The Music are justifiably keen to distance themselves from the 'Roses, the constant comparisons, clearly, acting as an injustice to a youthful band overflowing with such belief in their own prowess... Suffice to say, though, that fans of John Squire will be hoping his imminent debut-LP displays as much brazen brilliance as Nutter demonstrates on this total outing. Elsewhere, 'Turn Out The Light' proves that the lads can capably pull off slow-burning, Zeppelin-esque introspection as well as pulsating rock, whereas the prevention of freaky dancin' to 'The People', what with its desperate plea for you to 'change the way you live now', may prove impossible.
As impudent as they are magnificent, The Music are a band unlike anything you've come up against not only this year, but anything within living memory. They're a group that, quite simply, you cannot do without.
Artists in this article: The Music
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