Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
All aboard for one of the best new bands in ages, 29 Jun 2006
Any band who sing bold empathetic songs about Captain Scott's doomed 1911/12 expedition for the South Pole (I have a long standing fascination with Polar exploration) are more than alright by me. This album opens with "Terra Nova" (So named after the ship that took Scott and his men to the South Pole) which is centred on appropriately glacial fronds of guitar and singer David Martins portentous baritone posing rhetorical questions about the polar party's fate. This song packs a hugely impressive emotional wallop, but is by no means the only track on the album to do so.
"A Rook House For Bobby", written about the descent into madness and reclusiveness of former chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer is an empathic tour de force with punch in the guts percussion and the guitars crashing against your emotional resolve in a poignant avalanche of six string clatter. This is a band with an appreciation of history and the way events resonates through time and provide a template for the way we all should purport to live our life's. Final track "The Beeching Report" is sung from the first person point of view of aggrieved railway workers, pleading yet angry at the closure of the small regional railway lines. It's a protest song that needs sending back in a time machine , but it's wonderful ,with an operatic yet affecting choir bleeding into the songs last third.
They can do epic and tender as well , the former in "Stainless Steel ", eight minutes of eddying orchestral accumulation and Martins grandiose voice percolating around the mix, eerie , tremulous , yet once again stricken with emotion . The latter is provided by "The Accident", all spindly guitars and on the horizon brooding atmospherics. "Citizen" recalls various nineties purveyors of sonic dalliance like Ride, Submarine and Whipping Boy which is no bad thing done this well.
.Along with the Guillemots this band has got me very excited indeed. Nearly as excited as in the early eighties when I discovered The Blue Nile and R.E.M for the first time. I thought I was beyond all that, but this mini album showcases that intelligent presupposing expressively charged music can still get the blood flowing faster than the Tokyo bullet train. Surely we all want to jump on board for some of that?
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18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Leeds' most exciting new band, 2 Jun 2006
With three limited 7"s to their name and a live show that is already the stuff of legend, Leeds-based enemies of Caps Lock, iLiKETRAiNS are all but redefining the phrase `hotly-tipped'.
Progress Reform - the band's first mini-album - features two of the band's previous releases, Terra Nova and A Rook House For Bobby, as well as five other tracks of intellectual, darkly uplifting sonic exploration.
Those dismissing the band's decision to wear British Rail uniforms during their live performances as a blithe gimmick would do well to re-think. In fact, it'd be taxing to find a band that take their craft as seriously as iLiKETRAiNS. Terra Nova tells of Captain Scott's doomed 1912 Antarctic expedition, while A Rook House For Bobby depicts the life of Bobby Fischer, the troubled chess grandmaster who ended up joining an apocalyptic cult and had the fillings removed from his teeth in case they influenced his behaviour, before being arrested, imprisoned and arriving in Iceland as a reclusive exile. In four-and-a-half minutes, Simon Fogel's drums punch the stomach, while David Martin's lyrics tear at the heart.
Elsewhere, Citizen is a jangling mess of distorted guitars and thumping drums and Martin's threatening lyrics on Stainless Steel ("Don't go in the kitchen, that's where all the knives are kept and I won't be held responsible") are masked by gentle, affecting guitars. At the close of Progress Reform lies The Beeching Report, a track which features iForwardRussia!, Napoleon III and This Et Al on backing vocals as some sort of iniquitous choir.
Leeds can claim ownership to perhaps the most exciting music scene in the country at the moment, and with Progress Reform, iLiKETRAiNS can probably claim to be the city's most exciting band.
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16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A sonic tapestry from Tinsley Viaduct, 2 Jul 2006
Having bought the previous 3 super-limited sevens from the band, I was already familiar with the band and their inventive approach to sounds, song structure and lyrics. For those who are not though, this 7 track mini-album is a must and is the best release on Fierce Panda since last years Art Brut album.
Although the band are no doubt subject of a major label bidding war at the moment, the control that the band exercise over their music, art direction and thematic content is likely to make them a difficult proposition to 'market' (and something that perfect pop supremos The Long Blondes have long complained about). However, their creative control is entirely justified on this record and it has been a long time since i have listened to a record that feels so measured and complete with, dare i say it, a relatively small budget. DJ Shadow's 'Entroducing' comes to mind for some reason.
The sound is probably not to everyones taste. Those familar with labels such as Constellation and Monotreme will find much to love here. The sonic tapestry is often a spartan one with menacing guitars and dark, gothic drums that can be genuinely terrifying at points. Comparisons to the glacial Sigur Ros have been plentiful, but iLiKETRAiNS are a more compelling proposition due to the the lyrical content. Biographical accounts of Captain Scott and Bobby Fischer are intruiging while the murderous Stainless Steel is something that Nick Cave would be proud of. The engaging political musings on No Military Parade and The Beeching Report suggest an intellectual depth that someone seems unfamiliar and rewarding without the usual pretentious baggage often associated. I could go on and on about the underlying 'intellectual' feel to the record...but i'm far to laissez faire to care about all that gubbins.
As i listen to it now, the apocalyptic climax to Stainless Steel is simultaneously droning and punching through my speakers. It sounds like it has been recorded in a gigantic B&Q Superstore without anything in it. This is in no wayintended as a criticism though. The effect is mesmeric. The sound bounces and reverbarates around as if the band are running about in a huge aluminium container with the feedback turned right up. Absolutely stunning it is...
In closing then, here is a band with a very bright future ahead. They should remain the creators of their own destiny though as the work will remain the better for it. Someone donate them a large record company advance so that they can produce even more stunning music though...
This dark masterpiece is going to be the sound of my summer. Perfect for a barbecue!!
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