Engineers - 'Folly' (Echo)
3/5
By: Laure James
There's a distinct appeal and arrogance when a band claims, 'We don't sound like anything current. We're not like anyone else...'
Currently, though, Windows Media Player is introducing them alternately as 'Acid' and 'Space Rock'. The Engineers, a Manchester-based four-piece, have such an insatiable desire to evade categorisation or even comparison, it's endearing; and, however difficult it appears, it only encourages the hacks to take differing slants on their scribings.
Here we go then. Incorporating lolloping drum cadences and yawning, songstress guitars, 'Forgiveness' is a synth-orchestral trip - self-contained, burgeoning determination which simmers sinisterly underneath a typically warming, hidden-Britpop-track intro. The cyclical beauty of 'Forgiveness' is its continuity; the chorus seems to blend seamlessly with the verses and around the third minute is a Mogwai-esque, thickly layered refrain which plunges the body of the song sublimely. Yet, the piteous sentiment is somewhat too apologetic, and the whispered lyric 'Do I deserve forgiveness?' is worn thin quickly, ill-fitting as a chorus, despite the track's littered, rhetorical sorrow.
The single 'Come In Out Of The Rain' is a little more ominous, and holds its own like an early Charlatans, bagga-style offering, wrapping itself in a more physical, distorted chorus. The lyrics prove more inspiring in 'Come In...', suitably decorating the more rhythmic musicality and moving away from the droned, opening two tracks and proving a finished-sounding centrepiece.
Their cover, meanwhile, of Tim Hardin's 'If I Were A Carpenter' is the more sentimental, hypnotic and almost Far Eastern-sounding track, while - much slower - the stretched, pastel-coloured sampling feeds well into the digestible 'Nature's Editing', which seems at times so nebulous it's hard to discern specific instruments (despite the succulently gentle piece stirring memories of early Spiritualized). The mini-album closes with 'Pictobug', a charmingly-named and intrinsic gem of a lullaby, lyricless and painfully remote, but still rather kindly in its seven minutes. Depressingly repetitive but nevertheless heart-warming, it lacks direction and excitement entirely, but you can't help feeling that that's simply the point.
As unsatisfactory as it may appear to allow a computer programme to make sweeping generalisations on your music collection, occasionally, as Engineers have confirmed, you've just got to divert expectations.
Artists in this article: Engineers
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