A riveting “nuts and bolts” espionage thriller that enjoyably wallows in it’s many layers of finely written detail and plot, generating a haunting atmosphere of paranoia in a world where even the simplest of gestures could get you retired/”retired” - never has being called in to speak to the boss in his (soundproof) office been so terrifying.
I just wish the whole thing had been directed by somebody with more experience who had a stronger idea of what type of film they were making, as all too often the film veers off-mark and wavers uncomfortably between having a docu-drama feel and the sleekness of a more mainstream thriller. The result of this fairly pedestrian handling is a distracting sense of imminent collapse under the weight of it’s own material and heavyweight cast. By the end it made me wonder why they’d bothered making the whole thing look as plain and ordinary as a television adaptation when there’s already a perfectly good television adaptation out there.
Worth a watch, though, if only to admire Benedict Cumberbatch’s fringe throughout, which seems to get more attention than anything else on screen.
3/5
Sunday, 5 February 2012
Saturday, 7 January 2012
Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory Health & Safety Risk Assessment
Dear Mr Wonka
Please find enclosed a copy of the Health & Safety Risk Assessment as compiled and completed by this department following our lengthy visit to your Wonka Bars confectionary processing plant.
I have highlighted numerous instances of glaring and severe safety failings that the management and general staff at your facility seem to be aware but ignorant of and I have therefore made appropriate recommendations that should be implemented immediately.
Yours sincerely
Food Standards Agency
HEALTH & SAFETY RISK ASSESSMENT – WONKA BARS CHOCOLATE FACTORY – FINAL DRAFT
1. A railing should be installed around the Chocolate River to prevent slips, trips and falls and a minimum approach line should be clearly marked and adhered to in order to avoid contamination from any un-authorised personnel.
2. A guard or grill surrounding the opening to the chocolate extraction pipe (which leads to the Fudge Room) should be installed to ensure that no foreign objects are able to pass through the opening and move up into the pipe.
3. Operating staff and accompanying visitors should be warned of potentially harmful flashing images and strobe lighting during the Chocolate River boat ride. Passengers should also be made aware of the disturbing nature of some of the images shown during the ride and a British Board of Film Classification age restriction certificate should be sought.
4. The Three-Course-Dinner Gum should not be deemed suitable for human consumption and distributed to staff or visitors until a separate report is completed by the Food Standards Agency. Until this report is complete and the necessary actions taken based on the findings no further production of this product should be allowed to continue.
5. There should be easily accessible emergency stop switches and entry/exit panels along the vertical length of the ventilation shaft in the Bubble Room. This is to ensure that, should any members of the Wonka Bars staff or visitors be unnaturally elevated after consuming the company’s own Fizzy Lifting Drink, they have appropriate means of escape and/or shutting down the rotary blades that are to be found at the top end of the shaft.
6. Clear and visible warning signs should be displayed in the Chocolate Golden Egg Sorting Room advising visitors not to approach or climb onto any of the equipment, including weighing scale-like structures, without proper supervision. Particular attention is to be paid to the hazardous and un-guarded garbage disposal chute hatch/bay which leads directly down to a regularly-fired incinerator.
7. Under no circumstances should any visitors be allowed entry to the Wonkavision studio and to gain access to the input stage or transmission array. Any and all future transmissions made within the Wonkavision studio should be supervised and countersigned by the factory’s Health & Safety Officer and the factory duty manager.
8. The Great Glass Elevator is to be grounded immediately until an inspection by the Civil Aviation Authority is completed and the aircraft is deemed airworthy. After inspection of your plant this department was unable to find a dedicated exit point for the elevator and I strenuously recommend that one is opened forthwith so that future launches do not interfere with or damage the plant’s superstructure.
9. All factory staff including, but not restricted to, the team of Oompa-Loompas should be subject to a full and extensive Criminal Records Bureau check before commencing employment at the Wonka Bars confectionary processing plant. Care should be taken not to allow any staff to be put in a position where they are left alone and unsupervised with any children or vulnerable adults who may visit the plant on open days.
END OF REPORT
Please find enclosed a copy of the Health & Safety Risk Assessment as compiled and completed by this department following our lengthy visit to your Wonka Bars confectionary processing plant.
I have highlighted numerous instances of glaring and severe safety failings that the management and general staff at your facility seem to be aware but ignorant of and I have therefore made appropriate recommendations that should be implemented immediately.
Yours sincerely
Food Standards Agency
HEALTH & SAFETY RISK ASSESSMENT – WONKA BARS CHOCOLATE FACTORY – FINAL DRAFT
1. A railing should be installed around the Chocolate River to prevent slips, trips and falls and a minimum approach line should be clearly marked and adhered to in order to avoid contamination from any un-authorised personnel.
2. A guard or grill surrounding the opening to the chocolate extraction pipe (which leads to the Fudge Room) should be installed to ensure that no foreign objects are able to pass through the opening and move up into the pipe.
3. Operating staff and accompanying visitors should be warned of potentially harmful flashing images and strobe lighting during the Chocolate River boat ride. Passengers should also be made aware of the disturbing nature of some of the images shown during the ride and a British Board of Film Classification age restriction certificate should be sought.
4. The Three-Course-Dinner Gum should not be deemed suitable for human consumption and distributed to staff or visitors until a separate report is completed by the Food Standards Agency. Until this report is complete and the necessary actions taken based on the findings no further production of this product should be allowed to continue.
5. There should be easily accessible emergency stop switches and entry/exit panels along the vertical length of the ventilation shaft in the Bubble Room. This is to ensure that, should any members of the Wonka Bars staff or visitors be unnaturally elevated after consuming the company’s own Fizzy Lifting Drink, they have appropriate means of escape and/or shutting down the rotary blades that are to be found at the top end of the shaft.
6. Clear and visible warning signs should be displayed in the Chocolate Golden Egg Sorting Room advising visitors not to approach or climb onto any of the equipment, including weighing scale-like structures, without proper supervision. Particular attention is to be paid to the hazardous and un-guarded garbage disposal chute hatch/bay which leads directly down to a regularly-fired incinerator.
7. Under no circumstances should any visitors be allowed entry to the Wonkavision studio and to gain access to the input stage or transmission array. Any and all future transmissions made within the Wonkavision studio should be supervised and countersigned by the factory’s Health & Safety Officer and the factory duty manager.
8. The Great Glass Elevator is to be grounded immediately until an inspection by the Civil Aviation Authority is completed and the aircraft is deemed airworthy. After inspection of your plant this department was unable to find a dedicated exit point for the elevator and I strenuously recommend that one is opened forthwith so that future launches do not interfere with or damage the plant’s superstructure.
9. All factory staff including, but not restricted to, the team of Oompa-Loompas should be subject to a full and extensive Criminal Records Bureau check before commencing employment at the Wonka Bars confectionary processing plant. Care should be taken not to allow any staff to be put in a position where they are left alone and unsupervised with any children or vulnerable adults who may visit the plant on open days.
END OF REPORT
Tuesday, 3 January 2012
The Tree of Life – film review
Experiencing this film is like watching a Catherine Cookson drama on mute whilst drinking heavily… although, to the best of my knowledge, Catherine Cookson dramas haven’t got quite so many dinosaurs in them.
The reclusive Terrence Malick returns with a much less direct and linear cinematic piece about, well, I’m not quite sure. If you break it down it’s a simple coming-of-age story about a boy who grows up with a short-tempered authoritarian father and eventually begins to rebel against his very ridged, buzz-cut upbringing. But the opening half-hour or so where we learn one of the boy’s brothers will eventually die (aged 19, long after the childhood events that provide the load-bearing centre of the film) and are then treated to an astonishingly well imagined and visualised version of how the universe and Earth began serve to unbalance the delicate story that’s being set up… if indeed there’s a story at all. Malick’s ever-moving and often un-obtrusive camera makes the viewer feel like the eye of God peering at events from the sidelines and we feel moved to intervene at times. It’s an exhaustingly sombre and lyrical film and will test the patience of most viewers, especially as there’s no real conclusion of sorts or explanation as to what’s just happened. It just sort of… happens.
My theory about the film is thus (warning: I’ve had to use brackets within brackets to properly annotate my explanations, so prepare yourself for lots of “(this (this))”:
We see a young man’s parents being informed of his death and their initial attempts to come to terms with their loss. From here we see the young man’s brother, who is already dead after drowning as a child, as an adult man (Sean Penn) in heaven (which is represented as a modern day busy skyscraper and hinted at by the man’s lighting of a blue candle in remembrance (I think “blue” represents heaven and goodness)) who’s living out his father’s dream of seeing his sons achieving a successful and wealthy life, even though he’s doing it in heaven. The young man’s brother then tries to reconcile things with his family and father by viewing his and his family’s life, and the universe as a whole, from the start (we even see his father lighting a red candle at one point, assumedly to hint at the fact that the path his father is taking in life (with his family in tow) is leading him to hell and/or damnation) and trying to understand what went wrong, if it went wrong at all. By the end he realises his father was only trying to do right by his family and his aggressive outbursts were only because of his frustration and desire to protect them. Once the man feels reconciled he meets his family as they enter heaven (which is represented by a sun-drenched beach) and a happy, loving reunion takes place.
There, that’s it, that’s what I think.
To me it was never particularly clear which of the three boys dies at the start and it’s never explained how he dies, so I’m guessing it’s all open to interpretation. I think Sean Penn’s character dies when the family are at a lake swimming and the references he makes in heaven to his dead brother are misleading… I think he’s mourning the other members of his family (including his recently deceased 19 year old brother) who are, one by one, dying and joining him in heaven. So basically when the film begins we’re witnessing the second child death and when the grandmother attempts to console the mother by saying “you still have the other two” she’s actually referring to the last boy and the father (Brad Pitt).
Give it a go… you’ll either feel empty or fulfilled by the end.
I also recommend watching it alone without distraction.
3/5
The reclusive Terrence Malick returns with a much less direct and linear cinematic piece about, well, I’m not quite sure. If you break it down it’s a simple coming-of-age story about a boy who grows up with a short-tempered authoritarian father and eventually begins to rebel against his very ridged, buzz-cut upbringing. But the opening half-hour or so where we learn one of the boy’s brothers will eventually die (aged 19, long after the childhood events that provide the load-bearing centre of the film) and are then treated to an astonishingly well imagined and visualised version of how the universe and Earth began serve to unbalance the delicate story that’s being set up… if indeed there’s a story at all. Malick’s ever-moving and often un-obtrusive camera makes the viewer feel like the eye of God peering at events from the sidelines and we feel moved to intervene at times. It’s an exhaustingly sombre and lyrical film and will test the patience of most viewers, especially as there’s no real conclusion of sorts or explanation as to what’s just happened. It just sort of… happens.
My theory about the film is thus (warning: I’ve had to use brackets within brackets to properly annotate my explanations, so prepare yourself for lots of “(this (this))”:
We see a young man’s parents being informed of his death and their initial attempts to come to terms with their loss. From here we see the young man’s brother, who is already dead after drowning as a child, as an adult man (Sean Penn) in heaven (which is represented as a modern day busy skyscraper and hinted at by the man’s lighting of a blue candle in remembrance (I think “blue” represents heaven and goodness)) who’s living out his father’s dream of seeing his sons achieving a successful and wealthy life, even though he’s doing it in heaven. The young man’s brother then tries to reconcile things with his family and father by viewing his and his family’s life, and the universe as a whole, from the start (we even see his father lighting a red candle at one point, assumedly to hint at the fact that the path his father is taking in life (with his family in tow) is leading him to hell and/or damnation) and trying to understand what went wrong, if it went wrong at all. By the end he realises his father was only trying to do right by his family and his aggressive outbursts were only because of his frustration and desire to protect them. Once the man feels reconciled he meets his family as they enter heaven (which is represented by a sun-drenched beach) and a happy, loving reunion takes place.
There, that’s it, that’s what I think.
To me it was never particularly clear which of the three boys dies at the start and it’s never explained how he dies, so I’m guessing it’s all open to interpretation. I think Sean Penn’s character dies when the family are at a lake swimming and the references he makes in heaven to his dead brother are misleading… I think he’s mourning the other members of his family (including his recently deceased 19 year old brother) who are, one by one, dying and joining him in heaven. So basically when the film begins we’re witnessing the second child death and when the grandmother attempts to console the mother by saying “you still have the other two” she’s actually referring to the last boy and the father (Brad Pitt).
Give it a go… you’ll either feel empty or fulfilled by the end.
I also recommend watching it alone without distraction.
3/5
Friday, 16 December 2011
Submarine - film review
I’m not sure how I feel about coming-of-age dramas. I suppose, like rom-coms, even if they turn out to be below-par they’re generally watcheable and pleasant enough. I guess every movie genre, be it action or thriller or fantasy, has to adhere to a certain narrative or thematic arc whilst striving to be original and capture the viewers’ imagination… basically, it has to justify it’s existence.
Submarine is adapted for the screen and directed by Richard Ayoade, known to many as Moss from The IT Crowd but, with his ever growing list of impressively subversive directing credits, is by no means content with spending the rest of his career as a comedic sidekick. What he’s proven so far with his tv and music video work is that he has a knack for making comedy visual (or is that making comedic visuals?) and isn’t afraid to have a knowing glance at the camera… cinematically speaking, of course.
So, what’s Submarine got that all the others haven’t? Well, on paper not a lot: it tells the well trod tale of secondary school hardship, first love, family breakdown and the onset of adolescence, but the key weapon at Ayoade’s disposal here is his leading man’s relationship with Ayoade’s camera. Craig Roberts as Oliver is charmingly off-beat and was able to make me laugh out loud with a simple turning of his head or with the fumbled murmur of badly timed sweet nothings. He’s a genuine find and the camera adores him and his comic timing.
Elsewhere is the oddball but delightful casting of Australian actor Noah Taylor as Oliver’s dad (who’s barely recognisable as an Open University presenter has-been who’s physical resemblance to his son is almost non-existent) and Paddy Considine who turns in yet another delightful weirdo played to subtle/unsubtle (I’m still not sure) perfection.
The story is told from Oliver’s point-of-view who seems to be directing his own self-indulgent biopic, even going so far as to drop-in editing cues into his narration. He’s constantly thinking and analysing everything that happens to him every minute that it happens (as one does as a self-involved teenager) not realising that there will come a day when he’ll stop thinking about everything so much and just get on with it.
Or will he?
Now here’s where I started to think about the cyclical nature of the story. You see, Oliver’s dad suffers from depression and has done so since, as he explains himself, he was about his son’s age. Both father and son are cerebral, maudlin sorts who end up capturing the heart of a girl who’s currently in the clutches of an unworthy oik, an endeavour which eventually comes back to haunt them. There are many circles in the visual make-up of the film: ceiling light shades, firework blooms, merry-go-rounds, bicycle wheels, tea mugs… Oliver even runs in a circle in joyous celebration of his new found love at one point. Is Submarine then a film about the inevitability of genetics and how we often inherit undesirable traits from our parents and are in no way masters of our own fates; or is Oliver really the fictional embodiment of his own father who is simply recounting his childhood back to us; or is time really cyclical and has, this time around at least, overlapped with a person embodying both father and son at the same time?
Yeah, ok, I’m reading far too much into it… but that’s what Oliver would do.
Fade to black…
4/5
Submarine is adapted for the screen and directed by Richard Ayoade, known to many as Moss from The IT Crowd but, with his ever growing list of impressively subversive directing credits, is by no means content with spending the rest of his career as a comedic sidekick. What he’s proven so far with his tv and music video work is that he has a knack for making comedy visual (or is that making comedic visuals?) and isn’t afraid to have a knowing glance at the camera… cinematically speaking, of course.
So, what’s Submarine got that all the others haven’t? Well, on paper not a lot: it tells the well trod tale of secondary school hardship, first love, family breakdown and the onset of adolescence, but the key weapon at Ayoade’s disposal here is his leading man’s relationship with Ayoade’s camera. Craig Roberts as Oliver is charmingly off-beat and was able to make me laugh out loud with a simple turning of his head or with the fumbled murmur of badly timed sweet nothings. He’s a genuine find and the camera adores him and his comic timing.
Elsewhere is the oddball but delightful casting of Australian actor Noah Taylor as Oliver’s dad (who’s barely recognisable as an Open University presenter has-been who’s physical resemblance to his son is almost non-existent) and Paddy Considine who turns in yet another delightful weirdo played to subtle/unsubtle (I’m still not sure) perfection.
The story is told from Oliver’s point-of-view who seems to be directing his own self-indulgent biopic, even going so far as to drop-in editing cues into his narration. He’s constantly thinking and analysing everything that happens to him every minute that it happens (as one does as a self-involved teenager) not realising that there will come a day when he’ll stop thinking about everything so much and just get on with it.
Or will he?
Now here’s where I started to think about the cyclical nature of the story. You see, Oliver’s dad suffers from depression and has done so since, as he explains himself, he was about his son’s age. Both father and son are cerebral, maudlin sorts who end up capturing the heart of a girl who’s currently in the clutches of an unworthy oik, an endeavour which eventually comes back to haunt them. There are many circles in the visual make-up of the film: ceiling light shades, firework blooms, merry-go-rounds, bicycle wheels, tea mugs… Oliver even runs in a circle in joyous celebration of his new found love at one point. Is Submarine then a film about the inevitability of genetics and how we often inherit undesirable traits from our parents and are in no way masters of our own fates; or is Oliver really the fictional embodiment of his own father who is simply recounting his childhood back to us; or is time really cyclical and has, this time around at least, overlapped with a person embodying both father and son at the same time?
Yeah, ok, I’m reading far too much into it… but that’s what Oliver would do.
Fade to black…
4/5
Tuesday, 6 December 2011
Mylo Xyloto - Part Two
PART TWO: the album...
What’s been allowed to endure from Viva La Vida and now permeates Mylo Xyloto is an insipid wateriness to much of the production, especially on the loathsome made-to-order single “Paradise” that features one of the many examples on the album of Chris Martin’s vocals being double-tracked, duplicated as a nightmarishly sickly choir or turned into a limp atmospheric sound effect. The overall result is a band lacking in identity so much so that you can no longer imagine Jonny Buckland, Guy Berryman and Will Champion playing their instruments alongside their frontman amidst the deluge of extravagant sonic embellishments and otherworldly leitmotifs.
But, as the tenth song on their fragile 2000 debut album Parachutes put it, everything’s not lost.
Tracks such as “Us Against The World”, “U.F.O.” and “Don’t Let It Break Your Heart” have the stripped down four-piece directness that once made the band achieve greater things and although it’s still in keeping with their newfound primary-coloured palette “Hurts Like Heaven” thrills as an exhilaratingly kinetic opener. “Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall” works considerably better in context with the rest of the album than it did as a stand-alone single (or was it just a free download?) and, along with the absurdly conceived but surprisingly enjoyable “Princess Of China”, represents the strength of the album’s arguably more compromised side.
It seems that the richer moments on Mylo Xyloto are those that favour simplicity and striking musicality over the Brian Eno-inspired/authored electronic flourishes and distracting overdubs that all too often serve little purpose other than to make the eyes of even the most open-minded and diplomatic of alternative rock fans roll.
But by this stage in their career I think it’s safe to say that Coldplay have chosen to stop fighting a losing battle in seducing reluctant listeners who’ve steadfastly brushed off their advances over the years. And yet by turning the other cheek the band have allowed their more showy pop affiliations to infiltrate their songwriting and perhaps even compromise their core musical values.
When Chris Martin briefly became a songwriter-for-hire in the mid-naughties to artists likes Jamelia and Embrace it was endearing to see him dabbling in charitable musical philanthropy, but the collaboration with Jay-Z on the single version of “Lost!” from Viva La Vida and the Rihanna duet here on “Princess Of China” give off the sickly scent of “feat.” credits being half-heartedly phoned-in and with the band now agreeing to appear on The X-Factor we see the inevitable turning of a once vaguely principled foursome into the worst kind of court composers/jesters.
But if Coldplay’s loyalties have now shifted from audience to advertisers then they have my sincerest empathy as the incessant and often narrow-minded hatred directed at them by an amnesiac music scene that surely owes them a sizeable debt would sour anyone’s compassion.
But fear not, for the end is in sight: the band stated that Viva La Vida was the start of a “trilogy” that would be characterised by a singular musical/artistic vision, so with two albums down we now only have one more like this to sit through before the next, hopefully less vaudevillian, incarnation of the band makes it’s welcome appearance.
2/5
What’s been allowed to endure from Viva La Vida and now permeates Mylo Xyloto is an insipid wateriness to much of the production, especially on the loathsome made-to-order single “Paradise” that features one of the many examples on the album of Chris Martin’s vocals being double-tracked, duplicated as a nightmarishly sickly choir or turned into a limp atmospheric sound effect. The overall result is a band lacking in identity so much so that you can no longer imagine Jonny Buckland, Guy Berryman and Will Champion playing their instruments alongside their frontman amidst the deluge of extravagant sonic embellishments and otherworldly leitmotifs.
But, as the tenth song on their fragile 2000 debut album Parachutes put it, everything’s not lost.
Tracks such as “Us Against The World”, “U.F.O.” and “Don’t Let It Break Your Heart” have the stripped down four-piece directness that once made the band achieve greater things and although it’s still in keeping with their newfound primary-coloured palette “Hurts Like Heaven” thrills as an exhilaratingly kinetic opener. “Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall” works considerably better in context with the rest of the album than it did as a stand-alone single (or was it just a free download?) and, along with the absurdly conceived but surprisingly enjoyable “Princess Of China”, represents the strength of the album’s arguably more compromised side.
It seems that the richer moments on Mylo Xyloto are those that favour simplicity and striking musicality over the Brian Eno-inspired/authored electronic flourishes and distracting overdubs that all too often serve little purpose other than to make the eyes of even the most open-minded and diplomatic of alternative rock fans roll.
But by this stage in their career I think it’s safe to say that Coldplay have chosen to stop fighting a losing battle in seducing reluctant listeners who’ve steadfastly brushed off their advances over the years. And yet by turning the other cheek the band have allowed their more showy pop affiliations to infiltrate their songwriting and perhaps even compromise their core musical values.
When Chris Martin briefly became a songwriter-for-hire in the mid-naughties to artists likes Jamelia and Embrace it was endearing to see him dabbling in charitable musical philanthropy, but the collaboration with Jay-Z on the single version of “Lost!” from Viva La Vida and the Rihanna duet here on “Princess Of China” give off the sickly scent of “feat.” credits being half-heartedly phoned-in and with the band now agreeing to appear on The X-Factor we see the inevitable turning of a once vaguely principled foursome into the worst kind of court composers/jesters.
But if Coldplay’s loyalties have now shifted from audience to advertisers then they have my sincerest empathy as the incessant and often narrow-minded hatred directed at them by an amnesiac music scene that surely owes them a sizeable debt would sour anyone’s compassion.
But fear not, for the end is in sight: the band stated that Viva La Vida was the start of a “trilogy” that would be characterised by a singular musical/artistic vision, so with two albums down we now only have one more like this to sit through before the next, hopefully less vaudevillian, incarnation of the band makes it’s welcome appearance.
2/5
Sunday, 27 November 2011
Mylo Xyloto - Part One
PART ONE: the story so far...
I’ll nail my colours to the mast about Coldplay now: I like them, but I’m not a fan. I don’t analyse their songs and collect their b-sides, but I have all their albums and will defend them against naysayers who see them as a bland coffee-table band with nothing to say. I thought their first two albums were good but I felt frustrated that they petered out after the first half (which isn’t to say the second side featured bad songs, it’s just the energy and vigour seemed to vanish) and their third album was wholesomely consistent and stronger but suffered a rather unfair backlash by the music press after it’s initially successful release. What I liked about Coldplay during this first-three-album period was that, although they were indeed “soft” and saccharine in places, there was still an edge and ingenuity to their musicality which I found very engrossing. Like an auteur film director they didn't always produce wholly satisfying features but their skill with framing and composition always beckoned my interest. But by their fourth album something had changed, they started introducing concepts and themes and characters into their music and turning their live shows into fancy dress parties with extravagant colour schemes and faux military garb… all the warning signs of a loss of inspiration and the introduction of gimmicks. Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends took what I liked about Coldplay and inverted it: their writing had finally become experimental and edgy and their musicality had turned soft.
What could have been accused of being a gimmick on Viva La Vida has been returned to on Mylo Xyloto with admirable abandon and the band have now fully blossomed from shy, angst ridden boys into gregarious men of the world who’s ideological and musical leanings have begun to grow more world-weary…
NEXT: the album...
I’ll nail my colours to the mast about Coldplay now: I like them, but I’m not a fan. I don’t analyse their songs and collect their b-sides, but I have all their albums and will defend them against naysayers who see them as a bland coffee-table band with nothing to say. I thought their first two albums were good but I felt frustrated that they petered out after the first half (which isn’t to say the second side featured bad songs, it’s just the energy and vigour seemed to vanish) and their third album was wholesomely consistent and stronger but suffered a rather unfair backlash by the music press after it’s initially successful release. What I liked about Coldplay during this first-three-album period was that, although they were indeed “soft” and saccharine in places, there was still an edge and ingenuity to their musicality which I found very engrossing. Like an auteur film director they didn't always produce wholly satisfying features but their skill with framing and composition always beckoned my interest. But by their fourth album something had changed, they started introducing concepts and themes and characters into their music and turning their live shows into fancy dress parties with extravagant colour schemes and faux military garb… all the warning signs of a loss of inspiration and the introduction of gimmicks. Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends took what I liked about Coldplay and inverted it: their writing had finally become experimental and edgy and their musicality had turned soft.
What could have been accused of being a gimmick on Viva La Vida has been returned to on Mylo Xyloto with admirable abandon and the band have now fully blossomed from shy, angst ridden boys into gregarious men of the world who’s ideological and musical leanings have begun to grow more world-weary…
NEXT: the album...
Tuesday, 18 October 2011
Killer Sounds
You can always count on rock ‘n’ roll for a bit of bad timing: Radiohead changed it’s lyrics to The Bends’ penultimate track “Sulk” following Kurt Cobain’s shotgun-related suicide; The Smashing Pumpkins’ third single “Disarm” from their second album Siamese Dream was banned by the BBC after it’s lyrical content clashed with morbid news stories of the time; and The Strokes saw sense to omit the mocking “New York City Cops” from the US release of their Is This It? debut album in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. However, it goes without saying that the release of Hard-Fi’s third album Killer Sounds is flagged by none of the above records’ hype or anticipation, therefore the closing title track with it’s tale of young people taking to the streets and rioting hasn’t whipped up a media frenzy and been rushed to be replaced following the recent urban unrest that’s plagued some of England’s major cities.
It’s almost a shame for the band that such an example of prophetic poetry and life imitating art didn’t hit the six o’clock news, as a bit of bad press would have done the album a bit of good. It’s been a very muted arrival all in all and, apart from it’s slightly unsettling painted skull artwork, Killer Sounds isn’t adorned with the same inspired, but strangely controversial, No Cover Art concept that fronted their previous effort Once Upon A Time In The West. But whether it’d made the headlines like it’s predecessor or not, Killer Sounds has remained what it is: a compulsively enjoyable slice of decadent and overly ambitious pomp.
I must admit I’m a fan of some of rock’s recent much hyped flops: Second Coming, Be Here Now, X&Y, Euphoric Heartbreak. I just love a band that pushes it’s music too far in the hope of being bigger and better only to end up veering off into absurdity. In context the above albums received harsh backlashes after an initially successful release and were only considered critical disasters after the dust had settled, but they remain enduring bloated treasure troves of musical guilty pleasures.
Even though Hard-Fi have attempted to classify themselves as a politically charged band with their own personal involvement in racial equality campaigns and musical themes cantering on the mediocrity of lower middle class idleness, they’re politicizing remains far too dumb to be taken seriously by the masses and so the band are at best enjoyed for their musical merits rather than their part-time protesting. A good thing too, as Killer Sounds is by far their dumbest record to date.
Teetering somewhere between mid-80s Michael Jackson records like "Billy Jean" and "Thriller", the Manchester Hacienda club scene and 90s dance acts such as Prodigy and The Chemical Brothers, the organic rock drum beats that were the heart of Hard-Fi’s previous albums has taken a back seat to some of Killer Sounds’ more explicit electronic rhythms. That’s not to say they’ve followed the recent indie band trend of simply sticking a few synth parts onto their records here and there to keep the kids happy, quite the contrary, in fact they’ve developed their already well established rock-you-can-dance-to format into a more intense and euphoric experience without opening themselves up to accusations of compromising their rock integrity… after all, they never really had that to begin with.
It’s no secret that frontman Richard Archer can’t sing, that’s what we love him for, but for once even his atonal wailings seem fractured and under pressure, especially on opener “Good For Nothing”. It’s the one part of the album that is glaringly inconsistent and perhaps could have done with re-recording. Archer has never sounded so underconfident and tired. Fortunately for us though his vocals never veer off into the mumbling nadir of Julian Casablancas’ vocals on The Strokes’ third album First Impressions Of Earth which single-handedly destroyed the hard work put in by the rest of the band, but they do hit a few cringe-worthy speed bumps.
With this new electro confidence the DIY ethos that permeated their previous albums has gone. This doesn’t sound like the same band that built their own studio by hand or recorded tracks in the back seat of a car. Before they were making dance records as if before the dawn of synthesisers, sampling and looping. Now their music is washed with an antiseptic electronic bleach that has eroded their characteristically modest musicianship and drowned much of the instrumentation’s personality.
But even though there’s an intoxicating busyness to the album it doesn’t spoil the very skilled songwriting that’s been made to endure, and so the new production dynamics have not been allowed to become too much of a barrier between the listener and the great tunes.
Whilst Killer Sounds is by no means a musical failure it does represent a band experimenting with a sound that they’ve been flirting with ever since their debut, Stars Of CCTV, with mixed results. The new glossy production values, which will be well suited to providing the soundtrack to clips of football highlights or montages of sun drenched music festivals with young people waving their arms in the air, is a welcome change but I really hope that Hard-Fi return next time with a more bare bones release that shows them at their best. Warts and all.
3/5
It’s almost a shame for the band that such an example of prophetic poetry and life imitating art didn’t hit the six o’clock news, as a bit of bad press would have done the album a bit of good. It’s been a very muted arrival all in all and, apart from it’s slightly unsettling painted skull artwork, Killer Sounds isn’t adorned with the same inspired, but strangely controversial, No Cover Art concept that fronted their previous effort Once Upon A Time In The West. But whether it’d made the headlines like it’s predecessor or not, Killer Sounds has remained what it is: a compulsively enjoyable slice of decadent and overly ambitious pomp.
I must admit I’m a fan of some of rock’s recent much hyped flops: Second Coming, Be Here Now, X&Y, Euphoric Heartbreak. I just love a band that pushes it’s music too far in the hope of being bigger and better only to end up veering off into absurdity. In context the above albums received harsh backlashes after an initially successful release and were only considered critical disasters after the dust had settled, but they remain enduring bloated treasure troves of musical guilty pleasures.
Even though Hard-Fi have attempted to classify themselves as a politically charged band with their own personal involvement in racial equality campaigns and musical themes cantering on the mediocrity of lower middle class idleness, they’re politicizing remains far too dumb to be taken seriously by the masses and so the band are at best enjoyed for their musical merits rather than their part-time protesting. A good thing too, as Killer Sounds is by far their dumbest record to date.
Teetering somewhere between mid-80s Michael Jackson records like "Billy Jean" and "Thriller", the Manchester Hacienda club scene and 90s dance acts such as Prodigy and The Chemical Brothers, the organic rock drum beats that were the heart of Hard-Fi’s previous albums has taken a back seat to some of Killer Sounds’ more explicit electronic rhythms. That’s not to say they’ve followed the recent indie band trend of simply sticking a few synth parts onto their records here and there to keep the kids happy, quite the contrary, in fact they’ve developed their already well established rock-you-can-dance-to format into a more intense and euphoric experience without opening themselves up to accusations of compromising their rock integrity… after all, they never really had that to begin with.
It’s no secret that frontman Richard Archer can’t sing, that’s what we love him for, but for once even his atonal wailings seem fractured and under pressure, especially on opener “Good For Nothing”. It’s the one part of the album that is glaringly inconsistent and perhaps could have done with re-recording. Archer has never sounded so underconfident and tired. Fortunately for us though his vocals never veer off into the mumbling nadir of Julian Casablancas’ vocals on The Strokes’ third album First Impressions Of Earth which single-handedly destroyed the hard work put in by the rest of the band, but they do hit a few cringe-worthy speed bumps.
With this new electro confidence the DIY ethos that permeated their previous albums has gone. This doesn’t sound like the same band that built their own studio by hand or recorded tracks in the back seat of a car. Before they were making dance records as if before the dawn of synthesisers, sampling and looping. Now their music is washed with an antiseptic electronic bleach that has eroded their characteristically modest musicianship and drowned much of the instrumentation’s personality.
But even though there’s an intoxicating busyness to the album it doesn’t spoil the very skilled songwriting that’s been made to endure, and so the new production dynamics have not been allowed to become too much of a barrier between the listener and the great tunes.
Whilst Killer Sounds is by no means a musical failure it does represent a band experimenting with a sound that they’ve been flirting with ever since their debut, Stars Of CCTV, with mixed results. The new glossy production values, which will be well suited to providing the soundtrack to clips of football highlights or montages of sun drenched music festivals with young people waving their arms in the air, is a welcome change but I really hope that Hard-Fi return next time with a more bare bones release that shows them at their best. Warts and all.
3/5
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