iLiKETRAiNS - We Go Hunting (Beggars Banquet)
2/5
By: Jim Carroll
One of my favourite Oscar Wilde witticisms was when he noted wryly that although "anybody can make history, only a great man can write it". If there is any truth in that axiom, it would suggest that either Leeds' iLIKETRAiNS have not heard it; not placed much store upon it; or simply have a pretty lofty opinion of themselves. Seeing as they are a self-styled 'thinking man's band' who play 'library rock', I can only assume that they're capable of such hubris. The retrospective epiticians' new single continues their fascination with haughty historical tragedy. 'We Go Hunting' is a depiction of the paranoid hysteria surrounding the Salem Witch Trials in Massachusetts in 1692, wherein nineteen women were executed on suspicion of being demons.
But as Jane Austen put it far better than I ever could, 'I often think it odd that history should be so dull, for a good deal of it must be invention'. Despite proclaiming to be an artistic interpretation of a historical event, it bored me to tears. It displays all the call cards that are increasingly giving post-rock a bad name - it's prosaic, plodding and slightly pretentious. It constantly yearns to be epic but is simply not arresting. Dave Martin croons in his sombre baritone like a slightly more animated Tindersticks. It was apparently recorded in a cathedral, and evidently aspires to some form of ethereal gravitas; but it all just comes across as rather elegiac. A reminder (if you needed one) that history lessons are often not all that fun.
Artists in this article: iLiKETRAiNS
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