Steeple Remove: Position Normal

Yes, yes, I know. This album came out at the end of 2015. I’m at least 6 months late. ‘Never knowingly on the pop pulse’ isn’t the motto of this website for no good reason. But come on, have a look at my Google Drive – see that folder there? That’s got some reviews of albums that have come out recently that I’ll be posting soon. Really.

Oi! What are you doing? Don’t look at that other folder! Stop it! Give me the mouse back! Forget you ever saw what you just saw. Please.

Ahem…anyway we’re here to talk about French band Steeple Remove’s first album for 6 years, Position Normal, and not what’s lying about in my cloud storage. I don’t know much about the city of Rouen, other than it featured in the game Call of Duty 3. Thankfully Steeple Remove don’t seem to take their influence from that, so there’s no songs about annoying teenagers continually headshotting you and then pretending to teabag your prone body.

Or are there…?

No. There are not. (I don’t think so anyway).

What is does have are songs which successfully meld synth-led motorik and post-punk influences. Other blogs may have honed in on Bauhaus or a trippier Echo and the Bunnymen sounds coming through, but – in a move which is sure to see me fired from the Both Bars On team – I think Position Normal has more than a little something of Simple Mind’s classic 1980 album Empires & Dance about it.

Opener Mirrors is all sharp edged guitar, atmospheric synths and haunting vocal, plus what sounds like a screaming ghost around the halfway mark. (Wooooooh! That’s the sound of a ghost. In French). It gets both effects and more musically heavy for the last couple of minutes before segueing very nicely into the urgent synth and bass repetitiveness of Silver Banana. Plus it has lyrics we can all relate to: “A silver banana in my hand / It’s good enough for you it’s good enough for me”.

We’ve all had that kind of weekend.

My favourite songs are always ones that feature a prominent, driving bass line and Steeple Remove do not disappoint in that regard – see Imaginary Girl, Sunshine, Calling Up and album highlight Activation, which ushers you in with an arpeggiated 8-bit pulse and gives you a one word sing-along chorus to boot.

Throw in a great Psychic TV cover (Unclean) and the eerie Western (as in Cowboy film) sounding Invisible Lights and you’ve got a cracking album that may not be the most original thing you’ve heard, but is certainly an enjoyable and rewarding long player.

Home Run finishes things off in a rousing manner; an optimistic sounding instrumental motorik and synth journey for the most part until it’s allowed to gently dissolve about four minutes through before reprising the main theme in bare-bones fashion.

Get it now from Bandcamp or your local reputable purveyor of recorded sound.

PS We’ve reviewed Steeple Remove before – you can have a look here. And then have a look here.

petecollins

Go March: Go March

Look, I don’t want to start out this review in an aggressive tone, but you and me have got to have words. I see you there, looking all smug, banging on about how there are no famous Belgians. Well, smug face, there are loads. LOADS. And hopefully Go March, hailing from the vibrant city of Antwerp, will also be joining that esteemed list of famous Belgians very soon if the quality of their debut album is anything to go by.

Opener ‘The Ship of Bambi’ is a slow burning kick off. Personally, I don’t think I’d want to be on a ship that was being navigated by Bambi. I wouldn’t hold out any great hope of getting to my intended destination. But I defy you to not be smiling by the time the synth organ breaks in around the 3 minute mark.

‘Chase’ takes the tempo up, spiky guitar rhythms and bubbling synths justifying the Krautrock plaudits that Go March have been accumulating, and recent single ‘Rise’ pulls you in from the get go with a hypnotic arpeggio and doesn’t let you go. ‘Like a Record’ follows that, and is a fabulous slab of Motorik which unexpectedly dissolves into a post-rock guitar ending.

There’s no let up in the second half of the album, with ‘Slow Horse’ almost serving as an interlude before you get hit with the 1-2-3 sucker punch of ‘Earthbound’, which steadily builds to a beautifully synth/guitar duel climax; ‘Lighthouse’ (with hints of Modular Synths meets New Wave to it); and finally ‘The White Lodge’ provides a suitably brooding ending to a beast of a record, evoking the feeling of dark clouds and rain over the river Schelde if you’re into that kind of thing (and I am).

If there was one small criticism it would be that a gradual building-style formula is adhered to on pretty much every track on the album. Repetitive? Yes, a little. But is that a bad thing, especially with songs as strong as this? Never. There’s plenty here for Motorik, Krautrock and synth fans. And anyone else interested in Famous Belgians for that matter.

Pick up Go March from the band’s website (or your other favourite retailer, most probably)

Eat Lights; Become Lights: Autopia

One of the slight drawbacks of Kontakte’s last album was the lack of motorik rhythms that made something really special of their former release. On discovering that one member, Neil Rudd, has left the band and formed Eat Lights; Become Lights, and after consuming the delights of Autopia, the reasons for this have become apparent (I think. The Great God of Google won’t tell me if this is the exact sequence of events, but it seems to make sense). So this is a contemporary motorik release that is unashamedly obvious in its influences (the band have been described at London based Klub Motorik’s ‘house band’).

If you’re going to do something with such an evident lineage then you’d better get it right – and Eat Lights; Become Lights get it spot on. With its sparkling and propulsive guitars and synths, ever forward pulsing rhythms and effortless melodies, Autopia evokes a velocity and movement that befits those modernist dreams of untrammelled mobility and freedom to which the motorik sound pays homage. As so composed, Eat Lights provide a soundtrack to those almost forgotten utopic visions of efficient travel, wherein concrete shone bright, tarmac glistened with hope and motorway services had the aura and mystique of orbiting space stations.

Jetpacks might not be included, but if you want a semi-nostalgic trip to the past-future Autopia is worth tracking down. Buy it here. And read The Quietus’ excellent article on all things motorik here when you’ve done purchasing.

Dark Matter

Test Drive:

angrybonbon