The Open - 'The Silent Hours' (Loog)
4/5
By: Toby L
'I can't forget it, I can't forget that I lost'...
Could have fooled us. The Open's debut-album is a secretly landmark and stupidly beautiful foray into sound, combining the dripping majesty of their producer's own work - Simon Raymonde, of ye olde 80s indie-pop influentials, Cocteau Twins - the clout of the north, and the sheer aptitude and harmonics of 'Bends'-era Radiohead. All in a neat, impeccably classy eleven-song package.
But you probably wouldn't have known, would you? Only minor press-twitterings have been branded across the Walsall/Birkenhead quintet's deliriously grandiose output to date - notably, of praise for their winsome balance of keyboards, ruptured melody and cascading guitars - yet there's been little in the way of hype (an asset increasingly more perfunctory in the emergence of the 'prized' talent of our time).
Godspeed you then, humble record-buyer, that you allow this winning matter to reach the prominence it deserves. 'The Silent Hours' is laden with epic tunes that simply can't wait to f**king explode - 'Daybreak' builds and builds teasingly in a mantra of backing-vocals and gently escalating drum-patterns until it finally pops, resultant in an Elbow-worthy mood-piece of abstract, haunted euphoria. Gripping.
Then, there are the anthems - the sweeping, teary-eyed vibrancy of 'Just Want To Live', 'Close My Eyes' and 'Bring Me Down' - and yet more of the previous, compositions so indebted to their ambition, the vision in their creators' heads, that they may never quite reach pay-back.
But watching The Open attempt this wide-scale, inhumanely massive shtick is all part of it - the whole while, our leaders are humbly voiced (Steven Bayley) and too drenched in the aesthetics of good songwriting to come across morose or aloof.
'How does it feel to be forgotten?'
We pray The Open don't find out; far worse concoctions have been bestowed upon us than this.
Artists in this article: The Open
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