Mystery Jets ‘A Million Heartbeats’ – Review

On the cover of their debut album, ‘Making Dens’, Mystery Jets surrounded themselves with old nik-naks: an air-fix model, a typewriter, gramophone, life belt, chalkboard, cricket bats and candles. The band, looking every bit the gang in RAF Jackets and scarfs, sat in a circle, facing one another. It was like an eccentric take on the ‘Definitely Maybe’ set up. In fact, everything about the band screamed eccentricity. From their lyrical preoccupations, to the fact that a father and son, Harrison and Blaine, were the songwriting partnership at the heart of the group, to their home studio set up on Eel Pie Island. That legendary island on the river Thames was once home to a ballroom where Pink Floyd hosted psychedelic parties for crowds of hippies, anarchists and squatters. And it was Pink Floyd who Mystery Jets were initially viewed in the lineage of. But In truth they bore much closer resemblance to The Libertines, or rather the raft of contemporary guitar bands that followed in Pete and Carl’s wake: The Others, British Sea Power, The Holloways, The Coral, Larkin Love and The Maccabees.

Through the years, Mystery Jets were able to chisel down the eccentricity (their focus shifted to straight up adolescent heartbreak, Dad retired from the band, they relocated to the mainland) and sharpen their ramshackle indie rock without losing their inherent charm. ‘Twenty One’ was nostalgic for the 1980s years before Dua Lipa and Taylor Swift jumped on the bandwagon. It holds up better than perhaps any other relic of the nu-rave era. 2010’s ‘Serotonin’ was arguably even better; arena primed power pop that, tragically, never actually made it to the arenas. 2012’s ‘Radlands’ was this peculiar English band’s experiment with all things Americana. It worked better than it had any right to. Fans of these albums – and I’m very much including myself – were responding to the sense of silliness as much as the razor sharp hooks and love-lorn lyrics. Which is why 2016’s, four years in the making, ‘Curve of the Earth’ was such a disappointment – it didn’t have any of either. It was a sterile, detached, bloodless collection of vaguely proggy rock music. Now, the recently released and long delayed ‘A Million Heartbeats’ doubles down on the disappointment. It’s marginally less dull than its plodding predecessor but manages to be even more encumbered by a cynicism and lack of personality.

‘A Million Heartbeats’ opens with the band at their most energised (in this context, that’s relative). On initial release, ‘Screwdriver’ was accompanied by a press release that suggested the song had the potential to bring listeners from diverse political backgrounds together. It was intended as an optimistic invitation to the disaffected, disenfranchised and alt-right but it seems Mystery Jets idea of uniting people equates to dumbing down. The song’s good intentions are noted, but it’s so lacking in imagination. The frazzled bass line sounds engineered to turn the heads of Foals fans rather than the alt-right (perhaps there is a crossover in demographics?!)

The album is full of this well meaning political idealism that in execution borders on nativity. It’s not that Blaine lacks insight or understanding, it’s that he’s frequently unable to articulate his anxieties in ways that resonate as original or captivating. instead he reaches for the low hanging fruit of cliche, vague affirmation and nonsensical metaphor. ‘The enemy is only what you fight them with’ whatever that means. The last track contains the most damning examples of these foibles. ‘Don’t look back’, ‘open your wings’, ‘there’s a world outside your window, what you running from?’ ‘No-one can stop us’. You can see how it’s meant to be inspirational but the frequency of lyrical misfires means that the potency of the message is ultimately lost. There’s a sense that the band are perhaps trying too hard. This is a self-serious and self-consciously ‘important’ album. It’s a world away from the band at their carefree and confident best. 

The strongest moments are the ones where Blaine stops trying to diagnose the world’s problems and starts to examine his own. Perhaps the exception to that is ‘History has its Eyes on You’ where he enters the risky territory of dishing out advice to someone he addresses as ‘girl’ and ‘sister’. As patronising as it has the potential to be, Blaine sounds genuinely empathetic and manages to express himself in moving ways. ‘Be the person you needed when you were younger’ he repeats in the coda. The title track has a chorus that is worthy of the band’s best, even if the other parts of the song feel somewhat stitched on. Then there is stand out ‘Hospital Radio’, which is a thoughtful love letter to the NHS. It cuts that bit deeper due to Blaine’s own hospitalisation this year. ‘When you’re lying in your bed soiled and screaming, wondering where the hell it all went wrong / wired up to keep your cold, cold heart beating / we will be the pill on the end of your tongue.’ It’s a moving account of acute trauma that reminds us of ‘Little Bag of Hair’ from the band’s debut and suggests some of the ways Blaine’s songwriting has actually developed over the years. If the former was childish, a little clumsy and more than a little twee, the later is delicate and deliberate. Both are great songs but ‘Hospital Radio’ is the album’s best argument for maturity.

‘Endless City’, guitarist William Rees’ sole songwriting contribution prior to leaving the band during lockdown, is a colour by numbers power-ballad directed at the faceless masses. It’s another cushiony anthem that feels frustratingly predictable, as if Rees already had one foot out the door in the recording studio. It strikes me that at this point Mystery Jets have lost sight of what actually made them unique in the first place. A cursory glance at the corresponding song titles on ‘Making Dens’ hints as the contrast. Compare ‘Can’t Fool Me Dennis’ to ‘Screwdriver’ or ‘Scarecrows in the Rain’ to ‘Witness’. I’m not saying that Mystery Jets should just mine that same kooky territory over and over again, particularly if they feel compelled to write politically, I’m simply suggesting that some of that specificity, enthusiasm and humour wouldn’t have gone amiss here. And so the most prescient lyric on the record comes during ‘Pretty Drone’ when Blaine reflects, ‘I’m becoming a ghost of who I used to be’. They remain a great band but on ‘A Million Heartbeats’ it can be a struggle to remember that.

5.5/10

Review Roundup

Westerman ‘Your Hero is Not Dead’

Will Westerman’s long anticipated debut, ‘Your Hero Is Not Dead’, is one of the most innovative singer-songwriter albums of recent years. It unpredictably reinvents and 1980s sophisti-pop in the same way that war on drugs channeled 80’s rock or The XX reinterpreted indie-pop. Bullion’s production is both smart and playful; the ghosts of saxophones haunt the edges and synths yawn evocatively in the background. Then you encounter less expected sounds such as the chillwave pan pipes that open ‘Blue Camache’. These details never overpower Westerman’s blue chords or refined melodies. He was trained in a church choir and is a technically precise and adventurous singer. He’s also lyrically meditative; reflecting abstractedly on issues of wealth, climate change, worship, creativity and connection. At times his writing is perhaps too inscrutable – the more memorable moments are often the most straightforward – the ‘I miss you’ at the start of the ‘The Line’ or ‘Confirmation’s stocky chorus. ‘Your Hero is Not Dead’ is a compelling debut album.

8.5/10

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Sports Team ‘Deep Down Happy’

In both their lyrical and musical references, Sports Team root themselves in mid-00’s pop culture. Ashton Kutcher, CDs, Trinny and Susanne all get mentioned, and from the post Libertines guitar tones to the ART Brut sing speaking of vocalists Alex Rice and Rob Knaggs, right down to the scrappy art collage that adorns the front cover – ‘Deep Down Happy’ simply feels transported from another age. It’s perhaps exactly what we need right now. It certainly helps their cause that they know how to write the kind of nagging hooks that cling in your head for days. ‘Here’s the Thing’ and ‘Kutcher’ are the two standouts; relentless, snarky and unapologetically delighted with themselves. They’re also whip smart indie pop songs, untangling middle class malaise in a charming and self aware way. The band somewhat lack vulnerability – the songs don’t really slow down for long enough to allow for any – and as a consequence ‘Deep Down Happy’ never really cuts as deeply as it might. It’s also, perhaps, a little too one dimensional and peppy to resonate more widely in 2020. But I’ll say this – it’s been a long time since I heard an indie band having this much fun. And that’s infectious.

8/10

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Run the Jewels ‘RTJ 4’

You know what to expect from Run the Jewels by now: highly animated rhymes, political agitation and a bouncing production. Fortunately for us, ‘RTJ4′ presents the duo at their blockbuster best. It might be their most unstoppable album to date, going hard from the bright beats of ‘Yankee and the Brave’ and rarely relenting from that moment on. Killer Mike and El-P sound like they are having fun as well as taking names. From the opening track’s blazing cacophony of alliteration and onomatopoeia to ‘a few words for the firing squad’, which is as close as they’ve ever come to penning a love song, there is humour and heart in abundance. It’s also a prescient record because that’s the nature of writing about inequality and injustice in 2020. Of course, this has been the pair’s bread and butter from day one and it hits even harder considering the current climate in the states. The likes of ‘Walking in the Snow’ and ‘JU$T’ are so full of precise, uncanny references to police brutality that I was convinced they were written after the killing of George Floyd. ‘And you so numb you watch the cops choke out a man like me / until my voice goes from a shriek to whisper “I can’t breathe / and you sit there in your house and watch it on your tv / and the most you give is a twitter rant and call it a tragedy.’ The fact it was written before Floyd’s death says less about Killer Mike’s prophetic ability and more about American society’s inability to tackle the problem at hand.

8.5/10

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Jeff Rosenstock ‘No Dream’ – Review

On ‘Leave it in the Sun’, from his new album ’No Dream’, Jeff Rosenstock describes absentmindedly stacking beer cans into a pyramid in a stranger’s home (maybe the same air bnb he goes on to describe in another song). He’s reluctant to knock the pyramid down before leaving, proud of what he’s constructed and embarrassed by the ridiculessnes of that fact. ‘Hardest part of growing up is letting go,’ he concedes. This is one of countless funny anecdotes that are as despairing as they are amusing. With ‘No Dream’, Rosenstock has written a relatable ode to modern helplessness. 

The songs are unashamedly written from the perspective of a touring musician, living off scraps and struggling to reconcile the indulgence of the rock n roll lifestyle with the grim practicalities of surviving on the road in the age of streaming. ‘***BNB’ finds him occupying the spare room of a depressed, recently separated young mum working in a hair salon. Holed up in this environment, Rosenstock paints himself as something of a shipwreck; struggling to sleep, in no mind to stay awake, chasing fleeting feelings and living vicariously through strangers he’s quick to move on from. He unloads this part mundane and part existential crisis while blasting out riffs that would have sounded at home on Weezer’s Blue Album. 

He gets caught up in the sheer stupidity of it all and chastises himself for his complicity. Whether he’s online shopping for a pair of Nikes (seeking solace in status symbols, an idea that Rosenstock acknowledges is ‘not going to bring no happiness, there’s no vacant bliss’) or getting riled up by a bearskin rug on a hotel carpet, Rosenstock frequently begins songs in a state of agitation over the minutiae of shallow modernity and ends them in a state of despair; seemingly resigned to the hopelessness and crippled by his own self-awareness. ‘It doesn’t matter that it really matters, yeah honestly, it doesn’t even matter.’

It would be sad if it weren’t so much fun.  ‘No Dream’ is one of the most searingly enjoyable political albums in recent memory. Incredibly, considering Rosenstock has been steadily releasing records for over two decades, ‘No Dream’ is arguably his best yet. It follows 2016’s ‘Worry’, a compendium of 20th century punk that re-introduced Rosenstock as a sort of contemporary prophet, and 2018’s more contemplative ‘Post-’. In between he found the time to make a brilliant power pop record with his side project Antarcticgo Vespucci. These albums exposed Rosenstock to a much wider (though still tragically tiny) audience. You can only hope that ‘No Dream’ continues to find him new fans.

Like ‘Worry’ and ‘Post-’ before it, ‘No Dream’ matches Rosenstock’s inherent hardcore inclinations with a real pop sensibility. I’ve rarely heard such a hook intensive punk album. Yet, for a punk album, it’s structurally and thematically ambitious. A song like ‘Ohio Turnpike’ switches musical and emotional gears so frequently, and so seamlessly, that it feels almost like Rosenstock is pulling several sleights of hand. It doesn’t sound at all busy or awkward. The tempo shifts, propulsive energy and sugary melodies combine to create something truly compelling and emotionally resonant.

There are moments of deep, lingering poetry throughout ‘No Dream’. The title track is about the US government splitting up families at the US / Mexico border. It depicts people at home, watching on TV, chosing to turn a blind eye. ‘They were picking up bodies on the tv when I caught a reflection of you and me, staring back at us while frozen on the screen… crank the white noise and pretend that we’re asleep.’ The song spirals in to a vitriolic and dense attack on a capitalist system that, Rosenstock contends convincingly, benefits the greedy and the powerful. Resentment and anger of this kind boils slightly below the surface of many of these songs. On the insanely catchy ‘Scram!’ for example, he directs those feelings at hypocrites who tell others to ‘wait until the perfect time’ yet ‘have been defined by skipping spots in line.’ 

But there is a hope that permeates, even in the darker moments. That hope resonates through the gang vocals, bright chord changes and jangly hooks. It’s perhaps best encapsulated in a lyric from the pop-punk barnstormer ‘Nikes’. ‘I’m looking for a dream that won’t morph in to a nightmare’.  He sounds optimistic. Or maybe not. He goes on to say ‘I’m fucking full of shit, sticking rich hypocrite.’ This is Rosenstock to a fault; equal parts dread and humour, and crushingly self aware. And we can surely all relate. This is that rare album that makes you reflect and ponder as much as it makes you want to form a circle pit.

9/10