It occurred to me recently that Spurs are best team in the country to support. I'm not saying they're the best, far from it, but just the most bloody entertaining, certainly in the last four years or so. Dad picked the right team. Here's why:
1) We don't do boring. Thanks to our habit of buying excellent attackers (Berbatov (he's gone but for the purpose for this blog he counts), Defoe, Pavlyuchenko, Bale, Crouch etc. etc. etc.) and good but eternally injured defenders (King, Woodgate) we concede a lot and score even more. Things have calmed down a little bit compared with 2007/8 where 4-4 draws were not uncommon - Arsenal Villa and Chelsea spring to mind - but we just don't do bore-draws. It's not easy on the nerves but it's great fun at the end of the day. 4-4 is always more fun than 1-0.
2) We're a thoroughly English club (relatively speaking). Daniel Levy is one of the few English chairmen in the Premier League, and certainly the richest of the lot. Not only is he liberal with his cash, but he also runs the club like a business, which, while it may sound dry, means we have among the best financial structure in the league. There are no £400m pound debts here. Furthermore, he's a very smart man: the £8m capture of Rafael Van Der Vaart was a stunning piece of business: the man is superb. Our team is also far more English (or British at least) than perhaps any other club in the top division. Unencumbered by injuries, our first team would include 8 British players (King, Woodgate/Dawson, Hutton, Lennon, Huddlestone, Bale, Crouch, Defoe), which is none too shabby.
3) Defeat makes victory all the sweeter. There are few other clubs that can say they have lost to Wigan and Bolton either side of thrashing Inter Milan (or something similar, obviously). Losing is annoying but it keeps our feet on the ground. Whilst we continue to slip up the club and its fans won't gain the arrogant sense of entitlement that others do (ahem, Arsenal and United), and won't sack the manager if even just a few such slip ups occur (ahem, Man City and Chelsea).
4) Heroes emerge from the unlikeliest places. In dire moments a strangely large number of players will step their game up and do something unexpected. Look to Alan Hutton, a largely ignored player, against Stoke (I think) a few weeks back where he scored one and won a penalty; Danny Rose scoring an absolute pearler against Arsenal in one of the crucial final few league matches of the season that helped secure a Champions League berth; Gareth Bale coming from almost nowhere to be the hottest property in Europe; a rare Huddlestone howitzer: there really are a lot of them.
5) We don't seem to have any twats at the club. 'Arry may occasionally show questionable morals, but on the other hand he is refreshingly candid and bullshit free. There are no Drogba or Ronaldo characters who dive at any opportunity and throw tantrums when decisions go against them. Of course I don't know them personally, but there is a distinct lack of egotism.
6) There are several under-appreciated players. No one seems to have realised that Huddlestone is without doubt the best player of long balls in the whole world. A drastic statement I think you'll agree, but hear me out. There are better passers - Xabi, Alonso, Iniesta, Fabregas etc. - but none of them could hit this. I hate the phrase but describing him as the team's "quarterback" is a pretty good description. His ability to predict an attacker's run and drive a ball with frankly unbelievable accuracy is astonishing; even more astonishing is that hardly anyone has picked up on this. Perhaps it's because he has been lumbered with a (fair) slow and cumbersome tag, but in the last year he has become an excellent shield for the back-four and a solid base from which to launch attacks. Liverpool were foolish not to place a bid when Alonso left, he would have filled the void more ably than nearly anyone.
Gomes is another under-appreciated gem. Just like Spurs itself, he makes just enough errors for the wider football-watching public to think he's crap, when in actual fact at his best he's in the top three in the league. I think it's fair to say his run of appalling form from the tail-end of the Juande Ramos era and the first few months of Redknapp's managership and the reputation that came with it has benefited both him and the club. No bids have come in that could unsettle him, and no one wants to buy him. His game isn't perfect but we wouldn't have won a place in Europe without his saves against Arsenal and Chelsea.
7) Gareth Bale. Holy Hell, this guy is amazing. No other player has generated so many column inches based purely on his footballing ability since, well, no one that I can remember - not even Ronaldo was hyped to this extent. The Fourth Estate has been singing his praises from the rooftops. His playing style is very similar to Ronaldo's, but whereas CR7 was critisised for going missing during big games, the opposite is true for Bale. He tends to falter against your lower-ranked teams but steps up and humbles the big boys. I've already mentioned consecutive defeats of Arsenal and Chelsea, but he's done it to Inter in spectacular fashion, Arsenal again, and several others that escape me for the time being.
Thursday, 25 November 2010
Sunday, 14 November 2010
Student Protest pondering
I was at the student protest in London this past Wednesday. It was not only did it stir up some passion within me about education, but it was also a brilliantly fun day, despite the ludicrous amount of time it took to get back to Southampton.
Talking to other students, reading journalism and getting into squabbles on the Guardian's comment sections has been revealing, and even though I was right there at the foot of 30 Millbank I wasn't fully convinced that the raise in tuition fees was entirely unjustified - yes, people should have the right to be able to study what they want regardless of cost, but on the other hand cuts have to happen, and no one seems to be able to offer any other valid suggestions.
However, something crossed my mind (or at least I think so; it might have been someone else's point) which is this: the tuition fee rise is a result of the recession, the government needs a quick buck so let's make the students pay. Fair? Maybe, but not the point. The thing is, we are not paying cash up front, but recieving loans. Degrees take a minimum of three years, combined with the fact that it won't affect anyone until the 2012 batch, means that that the government won't be seeing any return until 2015. That's not even taking into account that a graduate has to be earning more than £21k p.a. before it gets payed back, and even then it will only be a trickle. I can't see how this will help the UK emerge from the recession; as a long-term investment I would imagine it is financially sound (presuming the number of students remain the same), but in the short-term it seems it would have a negative impact on the economy.
Moreover, the loans themselves come from the government so in between now and 2015 the university system will be an even greater financial burden than it already is. Perhaps I'm missing something here - this point seems too obvious to have been overlooked by messrs Osbourne and Cable - but I can't see it. Enlighten me in the comments.
P.S. Anybody reading this that hasn't been to a large-scale protest before, I highly recommend it, even if you don't have any particular allegiance to a cause. It's so much fun, and something of an eye-opener - seeing 50'000 people getting fired up made me realise that things actually do matter, and it's worth fighting for the people that are getting hit the worst.
Talking to other students, reading journalism and getting into squabbles on the Guardian's comment sections has been revealing, and even though I was right there at the foot of 30 Millbank I wasn't fully convinced that the raise in tuition fees was entirely unjustified - yes, people should have the right to be able to study what they want regardless of cost, but on the other hand cuts have to happen, and no one seems to be able to offer any other valid suggestions.
However, something crossed my mind (or at least I think so; it might have been someone else's point) which is this: the tuition fee rise is a result of the recession, the government needs a quick buck so let's make the students pay. Fair? Maybe, but not the point. The thing is, we are not paying cash up front, but recieving loans. Degrees take a minimum of three years, combined with the fact that it won't affect anyone until the 2012 batch, means that that the government won't be seeing any return until 2015. That's not even taking into account that a graduate has to be earning more than £21k p.a. before it gets payed back, and even then it will only be a trickle. I can't see how this will help the UK emerge from the recession; as a long-term investment I would imagine it is financially sound (presuming the number of students remain the same), but in the short-term it seems it would have a negative impact on the economy.
Moreover, the loans themselves come from the government so in between now and 2015 the university system will be an even greater financial burden than it already is. Perhaps I'm missing something here - this point seems too obvious to have been overlooked by messrs Osbourne and Cable - but I can't see it. Enlighten me in the comments.
P.S. Anybody reading this that hasn't been to a large-scale protest before, I highly recommend it, even if you don't have any particular allegiance to a cause. It's so much fun, and something of an eye-opener - seeing 50'000 people getting fired up made me realise that things actually do matter, and it's worth fighting for the people that are getting hit the worst.
Saturday, 13 November 2010
A Critical Analysis of 'Eh Marine!'
As part and parcel with my new Film & English degree, I've been exposed to a lot of great films in the past few weeks - we're talking Casablanca, Rear Window and Singin' In The Rain - but one stand head and shoulders above the rest. What's amazing about this film is the sheer amount of brilliance encapsulated within just six short seconds. You'll laugh, you'll cry (with laughter), you'll press replay umpteen times. What is this film? It is, of course, Eh Marine!
Eh Marine! exhibits some deceptively complex mise-en-scene. Notice the stark contrast of our two protagonists; one so manic and energetic - undoubtedly a parody the gurning and goofy Cosmo Brown - and the other so unsuspecting, so mundane. Caliboss99 is clearly a skilful manipulator of his audience. We automatically favour our anti-hero over Marine: he looks like a guy that really knows how to party...check out that killer jiggle/head-wobble combination and tell me he wouldn't give Andrew WK a run for his money in the party stakes. Marine is such a drab character, we relish her getting one smartly upside the head. Her clothes: drab; her expression: dull; her repsonse: a grunt - everything about her is asking for a whipping.
It's all about context though, really. What causes the bouncy guy to strike down upon her with great vengeance (though not so much furious anger)? Why is he so bouncy? How did he get that slap so damn right? As for the latter, I would suggest it lies in the follow-through: that was a proper pimp-slap and make no mistake. The guy clearly has experience; p'raps Marine's a whore and she's been skimming some hoe money off the top. What better way to punish a girl than by brutally smacking her on camera? Don't answer that question.
Eh Marine! exhibits some deceptively complex mise-en-scene. Notice the stark contrast of our two protagonists; one so manic and energetic - undoubtedly a parody the gurning and goofy Cosmo Brown - and the other so unsuspecting, so mundane. Caliboss99 is clearly a skilful manipulator of his audience. We automatically favour our anti-hero over Marine: he looks like a guy that really knows how to party...check out that killer jiggle/head-wobble combination and tell me he wouldn't give Andrew WK a run for his money in the party stakes. Marine is such a drab character, we relish her getting one smartly upside the head. Her clothes: drab; her expression: dull; her repsonse: a grunt - everything about her is asking for a whipping.
It's all about context though, really. What causes the bouncy guy to strike down upon her with great vengeance (though not so much furious anger)? Why is he so bouncy? How did he get that slap so damn right? As for the latter, I would suggest it lies in the follow-through: that was a proper pimp-slap and make no mistake. The guy clearly has experience; p'raps Marine's a whore and she's been skimming some hoe money off the top. What better way to punish a girl than by brutally smacking her on camera? Don't answer that question.
Wednesday, 13 October 2010
Jamie Oliver
You may remember back in 2005 Jamie Oliver tackled the awful school meals served to our nations primary school children, epitomised by the now infamous Turkey Twizzlers. It made great television: the aim was laudable but the obstacles considerable, but by the end he had Greenwich schools eating well.
Now he's back, but this time in America, specifically Huntington, the fattest town in the fattest state in the fattest nation on Earth. As a challenge it's a whole new kettle of fish. Also, it's even more entertaining than before. Despite being what would probably be called a reality show, Jamie's American Food Revolution has all the ingredients of a great drama. Jamie is undoubtedly the underdog, faced with an array of set-in-their-way adversaries, from grizzled "cook" Alice, the American school culinary system, the kids' comfort zones and best of all, radio DJ Rod the Dawg.
Rod is a brilliant antagonist: he is immediately unrelentingly opposed to anything Jamie says or does, he's thick, regressive and agressive. 'I don't want to go around eating lettuce all day' neatly summed up his, and the wider American population's, sentiments.
Oliver gets a lot of stick from (stupid) people for being rich and egotistical, but frankly anyone that continues to hold this belief after watching not just this show, but all his other shows too, is a moron. That Jamie is tackling a serious problem only makes it more compelling, and also allows us to forgive his often cringeworthy adopted Americanisms. Why he feels he has to call everyone 'brother' I don't know, in fact it's a little bit creepy.
Now he's back, but this time in America, specifically Huntington, the fattest town in the fattest state in the fattest nation on Earth. As a challenge it's a whole new kettle of fish. Also, it's even more entertaining than before. Despite being what would probably be called a reality show, Jamie's American Food Revolution has all the ingredients of a great drama. Jamie is undoubtedly the underdog, faced with an array of set-in-their-way adversaries, from grizzled "cook" Alice, the American school culinary system, the kids' comfort zones and best of all, radio DJ Rod the Dawg.
Rod is a brilliant antagonist: he is immediately unrelentingly opposed to anything Jamie says or does, he's thick, regressive and agressive. 'I don't want to go around eating lettuce all day' neatly summed up his, and the wider American population's, sentiments.
Oliver gets a lot of stick from (stupid) people for being rich and egotistical, but frankly anyone that continues to hold this belief after watching not just this show, but all his other shows too, is a moron. That Jamie is tackling a serious problem only makes it more compelling, and also allows us to forgive his often cringeworthy adopted Americanisms. Why he feels he has to call everyone 'brother' I don't know, in fact it's a little bit creepy.
Thursday, 23 September 2010
ONE HUNDRED HITS
IMPORTANT EDIT: I completely misunderstood the hit-counter: the one I was looking at was in fact profile views, a very different beast to blog views. Rather than a poxy 100 views, I actually have 1600+, which I'm rather chuffed about. There's a really neat feature that breaks down page views in more or less every way you can think of, and while I won't go into much detail - I don't have enough time and I can't imagine it interests anyone but me - I'll still put a few of the most noteworthy down.
My most popular blog post by far is the castle blog, with 450 or so, a fair way ahead of number 2, my Everything Everything review (that said, the Everything Everything review is much younger). It's nice that the two that I consider to be my strongest have garnered the most attention.
The UK and US are exactly tied for most views at 484.
Erm, that's pretty much it. Ignore everything hereafter.
YES!
Twenty months after my first blog post, way back in February 2009, I have hit the big 100 blog views. That's one every six days, how amazing!
Okay, that is pretty pathetic. I herby declare I will embark upon an extensive campaign of blog-plugging, i.e. linking to it in all my online profiles. Let's aim for 200 by this time next year.
Blog Breakdown:
Duration: 20 months
Posts: 54
Monthly Average: 2.7 posts
Monthly High: June 2010, 9 posts
Monthly Low: April May 2009, 0 posts; August 2009, 1 post.
By genre:
Music: 18 posts
Sport: 13 posts
Film: 5 posts
Other stuff: the rest
Trends: Over the course of my blog random pieces about random things have become far more scarce, with the focus now being on music, sport or film. They are also longer and more coherent. My best one? The most fun to write was the first one about the Tour de France, but looking back on it now my writing is pretty poor. In that case, the recent review of Man Alive must be the best, and is actually the only review on the reasonably highly-trafficked SputnikMusic.
Other thoughts: Sport is really easy to write about. Weighty issues are far harder. I should write about literature more.
My most popular blog post by far is the castle blog, with 450 or so, a fair way ahead of number 2, my Everything Everything review (that said, the Everything Everything review is much younger). It's nice that the two that I consider to be my strongest have garnered the most attention.
The UK and US are exactly tied for most views at 484.
Erm, that's pretty much it. Ignore everything hereafter.
By genre:
Music: 18 posts
Sport: 13 posts
Film: 5 posts
Other stuff: the rest
Trends: Over the course of my blog random pieces about random things have become far more scarce, with the focus now being on music, sport or film. They are also longer and more coherent. My best one? The most fun to write was the first one about the Tour de France, but looking back on it now my writing is pretty poor. In that case, the recent review of Man Alive must be the best, and is actually the only review on the reasonably highly-trafficked SputnikMusic.
Other thoughts: Sport is really easy to write about. Weighty issues are far harder. I should write about literature more.
Sunday, 19 September 2010
The Long-Lost Art of the Guitar Solo
In a time now sadly passed, any rock act worth its salt had a guitarist with some serious chops. We're talking Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, Deep Purple, AC/DC - all bands with great guitarists that knew the difference between tasteful licks and self-indulgence, who didn't rely on pure speed in their solos, as many guitarists do nowadays. (Why did I accidentally put so many food-related words in those two sentences? I just ate an' everything). But barring the few survivors from those better times (Iron Maiden, Mark Knopfler) there has been nothing in the past ten years with anything to the aforementioned guitar Gods, except The Darkness.
Despite scooping four Brit awards in 2004, The Darkness were a band that few people could take seriously. They saw the spandex, the castrato, the high-camp, and for a glorious few month everybody embraced rock, and make no mistake, Permission To Land is rock at its best. Not since Back In Black had a band wielded distortion as capably as Justin Hawkins and brother Dan. But then people began to feel a bit guilty about it all. Did we really like this lot? They are sooo unfashionable! The Darkness were swept under the carpet, and the (admittedly inferior) follow-up album, One Way Ticket To Hell sold poorly in comparision, and unlike other artists and bands that rose to prominence in the early 00s, such as the Libertines and Franz Ferdinand, The Darkness spawned no immitators. They were abandoned and left to plow their own lonely furrow until they disbanded.
I think there is also a case to be made for the guitar solo being replaced by a rap break. In the 70s and 80s many pop acts featured (bad) guitar solos, just because it was the done thing: verse chorus verse solo verse outro. Nowadays a good percentage of pop releases have some sort of rap breakdown, but there are musical and not juststructural similarites. Both are largely self-indulgent, not brilliantly skillful and often incongruous to the style of the song. Now while I don't particularly miss the fashion for songs with bad solos, it is indicative of the shift away from the use of electric guitars in mainstream music.
Okay, I'm not entirely telling the truth when I say there has been no other great guitar work. Early Muse albums dripped with Matt Bellamy's signature guitar playing, though it was less soloing and more excellent rhythm playing. Then there are the metal bands, though despite being a genre that relies entirely on the guitar, bands have tended to descend into the drop D chug of, say, Meshuggah or the aimless tragic wankery of Dream Theater. The only one that springs to mind is Opeth, and while metal isn't my forte, I know enough about it to make sweeping statements that disregard the whole genre of metal. Er...
Shredding, the art of playing a stupid amount of notes in as short a space as possible, has become the dominant form of the guitar solo. It is crap. Shredding is the guitar equivalent of X Factor melismatic, gymnastic singing that people seem to think is good nowadays. It might seem a strange comparison, but it holds water. Take Alexandra Burke. She has a good voice: it's powerful and she can hit notes accurately, but has absolutely no concept of melody. Instead of finding a note and sticking with it she blasts up and down the scales, leaving you unsure as to what tune she is supposed to be singing. This approach exists on the guitar also, for instance wank-King Steve Vai and his equally bad mentor Joe Satriani. Look them up on YouTube and it won't take long to see what I mean. When Vai tries to give his playing some space à la Pink Floyd, it just sounds dreadful: see For The Love Of God. Put it this way: I can shred. Not very well, but once you know a few scales, and have quick fingers it doesn't take much imagination to play like these guys. However writing solos like the two in Comfortably Numb, both of which are fairly easy to play, takes more than just speed.
Is good guitar playing a thing of the past? Are the likes of the Hawkins brothers, Tom Morello of RATM and Absolution era Muse the last of the old guard? I really hope not.
EDIT: Just looked up For The Love Of God on Youtube and the first video is a perfect example of what I'm talking. Fret-wankage made literal at 4:30, so bad.
Despite scooping four Brit awards in 2004, The Darkness were a band that few people could take seriously. They saw the spandex, the castrato, the high-camp, and for a glorious few month everybody embraced rock, and make no mistake, Permission To Land is rock at its best. Not since Back In Black had a band wielded distortion as capably as Justin Hawkins and brother Dan. But then people began to feel a bit guilty about it all. Did we really like this lot? They are sooo unfashionable! The Darkness were swept under the carpet, and the (admittedly inferior) follow-up album, One Way Ticket To Hell sold poorly in comparision, and unlike other artists and bands that rose to prominence in the early 00s, such as the Libertines and Franz Ferdinand, The Darkness spawned no immitators. They were abandoned and left to plow their own lonely furrow until they disbanded.
I think there is also a case to be made for the guitar solo being replaced by a rap break. In the 70s and 80s many pop acts featured (bad) guitar solos, just because it was the done thing: verse chorus verse solo verse outro. Nowadays a good percentage of pop releases have some sort of rap breakdown, but there are musical and not juststructural similarites. Both are largely self-indulgent, not brilliantly skillful and often incongruous to the style of the song. Now while I don't particularly miss the fashion for songs with bad solos, it is indicative of the shift away from the use of electric guitars in mainstream music.
Okay, I'm not entirely telling the truth when I say there has been no other great guitar work. Early Muse albums dripped with Matt Bellamy's signature guitar playing, though it was less soloing and more excellent rhythm playing. Then there are the metal bands, though despite being a genre that relies entirely on the guitar, bands have tended to descend into the drop D chug of, say, Meshuggah or the aimless tragic wankery of Dream Theater. The only one that springs to mind is Opeth, and while metal isn't my forte, I know enough about it to make sweeping statements that disregard the whole genre of metal. Er...
Shredding, the art of playing a stupid amount of notes in as short a space as possible, has become the dominant form of the guitar solo. It is crap. Shredding is the guitar equivalent of X Factor melismatic, gymnastic singing that people seem to think is good nowadays. It might seem a strange comparison, but it holds water. Take Alexandra Burke. She has a good voice: it's powerful and she can hit notes accurately, but has absolutely no concept of melody. Instead of finding a note and sticking with it she blasts up and down the scales, leaving you unsure as to what tune she is supposed to be singing. This approach exists on the guitar also, for instance wank-King Steve Vai and his equally bad mentor Joe Satriani. Look them up on YouTube and it won't take long to see what I mean. When Vai tries to give his playing some space à la Pink Floyd, it just sounds dreadful: see For The Love Of God. Put it this way: I can shred. Not very well, but once you know a few scales, and have quick fingers it doesn't take much imagination to play like these guys. However writing solos like the two in Comfortably Numb, both of which are fairly easy to play, takes more than just speed.
Is good guitar playing a thing of the past? Are the likes of the Hawkins brothers, Tom Morello of RATM and Absolution era Muse the last of the old guard? I really hope not.
EDIT: Just looked up For The Love Of God on Youtube and the first video is a perfect example of what I'm talking. Fret-wankage made literal at 4:30, so bad.
Friday, 3 September 2010
Everything Everything - Man Alive
After watching from afar for far too long, I joined SputnikMusic, a music reviews site where users can post their own reviews. I blogged about Everything Everything a few months ago, and their debut album is now out, and it's pretty decent. Find my review here.
Like a comic who chains complex pun after complex pun, leaving the brain scrambling to catch up, so goes Man Alive, the debut album from Everything Everything. It is an album unlike anything you've ever heard before, a true original, and at times, to borrow a lyric from Two For Nero, will leave you as "giddy as a baby in a centrifuge". What sets Everything Everything apart from the crowd is Jonathan Higgins' sugary falsetto: he delivers frequently baffling lines, "And I wanna know what happened to your boyfriend because he was looking at me like 'Whoah!'" at speed with constant octave-leaps. It can be quite bewildering.
Full disclosure: if the lyrics actually mean anything coherent it is beyond me. That isn't to say they are bad, far from it, in fact as little sense as they make Higgins has the power of an arresting turn of phrase, juxtaposing 1980s videogame nostalgia, "It's like Sega never died" with echoes of Nazi Germany, "You goosestep around the garden" in Two For Nero. He also on occasion plays with verbal jokes; decide for yourself whether the refrain in album highlight Suffraggette Suffraggette scans "Who's gonna sit on your fence", or "Who's gonna sit on your face".
The vocal hi-jinx does begin to grate by the start of Come Alive Diana. It's one falsetto-leap too far and feels like an attempt to inject some life into an otherwise stale song. Indeed, the last four songs are largely forgettable affairs, with the exception of NASA Is On Your Side, showing refreshing restrain in a slow-burning build-up over solemn keys, before peaking with an exultant chorus.
The focus of this review has been thus-far on the vocals, but there is some really excellent musicianship on display. Guitarist Alex Robertshow is reminiscent of Radiohead's Johnny Greenwood: it's unobtrusive, varied and deft, and also provides one of Man Alive's highpoints. From nowhere Suffraggette Suffragette is illuminated by a dirty great slab of driving distortion, an isolated moment of untempered rawk. It's a fabulous addition, but it's something of a double-edged sword: the other tracks are diminished ever so slightly. Their highly polished arty and intelligent exteriors, particularly Final Form and the closing duo of Tin (The Manhole) and Weights, have their lack of fire and warmth exaggerated.
That said, with such boundless invention it was always likely that Everything Everything would take a few mis-steps, but successes outweigh weaknesses in this superb first effort.
7/10
Like a comic who chains complex pun after complex pun, leaving the brain scrambling to catch up, so goes Man Alive, the debut album from Everything Everything. It is an album unlike anything you've ever heard before, a true original, and at times, to borrow a lyric from Two For Nero, will leave you as "giddy as a baby in a centrifuge". What sets Everything Everything apart from the crowd is Jonathan Higgins' sugary falsetto: he delivers frequently baffling lines, "And I wanna know what happened to your boyfriend because he was looking at me like 'Whoah!'" at speed with constant octave-leaps. It can be quite bewildering.
Full disclosure: if the lyrics actually mean anything coherent it is beyond me. That isn't to say they are bad, far from it, in fact as little sense as they make Higgins has the power of an arresting turn of phrase, juxtaposing 1980s videogame nostalgia, "It's like Sega never died" with echoes of Nazi Germany, "You goosestep around the garden" in Two For Nero. He also on occasion plays with verbal jokes; decide for yourself whether the refrain in album highlight Suffraggette Suffraggette scans "Who's gonna sit on your fence", or "Who's gonna sit on your face".
The vocal hi-jinx does begin to grate by the start of Come Alive Diana. It's one falsetto-leap too far and feels like an attempt to inject some life into an otherwise stale song. Indeed, the last four songs are largely forgettable affairs, with the exception of NASA Is On Your Side, showing refreshing restrain in a slow-burning build-up over solemn keys, before peaking with an exultant chorus.
The focus of this review has been thus-far on the vocals, but there is some really excellent musicianship on display. Guitarist Alex Robertshow is reminiscent of Radiohead's Johnny Greenwood: it's unobtrusive, varied and deft, and also provides one of Man Alive's highpoints. From nowhere Suffraggette Suffragette is illuminated by a dirty great slab of driving distortion, an isolated moment of untempered rawk. It's a fabulous addition, but it's something of a double-edged sword: the other tracks are diminished ever so slightly. Their highly polished arty and intelligent exteriors, particularly Final Form and the closing duo of Tin (The Manhole) and Weights, have their lack of fire and warmth exaggerated.
That said, with such boundless invention it was always likely that Everything Everything would take a few mis-steps, but successes outweigh weaknesses in this superb first effort.
7/10
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