Gratitude - 'Gratitude' (Atlantic / Velvet Hammer)
3/5
By: Thomas Hannan
If you think about it, the best bits of a scene always happen before it's been given a name. Britpop wasn't about 'Parklife' and '...Morning Glory?'; it was perfected by Blur's 'Modern Life Is Rubbish' in 1992, a record which nobody bought. And do you think Kraftwerk actually knew they were making 'dance' music? Punk? The Stooges over the Pistols any day, mate. But if you want a definition of emo, head back to '98, a quartet called Far and a record called 'Water & Solutions'. Listen to it, and tell me it's doesn't eat and poop everything Funeral For A Friend have ever managed. You'll be wrong.
The mastermind behind that field's zenith is also in the driving seat of Gratitude, although he's got a more radio-friendly roadmap cluttering up the passenger's chair. But Jonah Matranga is as much of a dab hand it seems at providing shimmering, summery pop tunes as he was at pinpointing exactly what emo was before anyone even cared about it. The difference with Gratitude, however, is that although they're very much at home with that ilk, the emphasis is very much on the hook rather than the havoc. Time-signatures aren't bended unnecessarily, nor will the pace frequently shift unrecognisably. If there's a message, it's that you needn't be complicated to convey feeling.
But feeling's what it's all about, friends. Feeling for others, concern, sympathy and longing. Its peak, as is so often and annoyingly the case, is the opener - 'Drive', a plea for help for an injured loved one that graphically describes the exact procedures you'd need to get her back to full health. But the pure, untainted lyrical altruism doesn't continue throughout. Where its pinnacle is thorough, gallant apprehension for others, its sticky, all too well-trodden trough is the utterly sickly 'Someone to Love', care for another being reduced to selfish motives, a method of neutralising one's own loneliness.
The rest of the record fluctuates in between these two kinds of emotion, borrowing from each of their directions. They're the kind of sentiments people never really let go of set to a style of musical delivery that many of its audience, given a few years, will probably outgrow. There's little to the actual sound here to keep them interested, but happily, there are enough really strong pop tunes to ensure they'll look back on it fondly when that time comes. And those are? The infinitely hummable 'All In A Row', a rousing 'This Is The Part', the cute harmonic yearning 'of Sadie'...
But, my word, is it soppy - the kind of thing where you give praise that at least it's set to music so you don't have to focus too sharply on the actual prose. But, to stress a point, the music it's set to, whilst not the full pummelling force of Matranga's former colleagues, is truly very strong, catchy and affecting songwriting. Unlike days of yore however, he's come in on the tail end of something rather than spearheading it. 'Gratitude' isn't strong enough on its own to start a resurgence. But it is sufficiently noble to be the record that everyone missed out on the first time round, which suddenly becomes a vital piece of the history of the wilderness years when the scene decides to come back around.
Artists in this article: Gratitude
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