With a name like New Amusement, I half expected this Dublin quartet to be a clear cut case of New Romantic throwback. I even went to so far as to imagine them with Human League-style wedge haircuts and ill-fitting suits, vying after po-faced Manc duo Hurts’ demographic.
Luckily, New Amusement is no such band, but they have taken the best part of that particularly disorienting era with them; namely a great big slice of post-punk urgency and a warbly Edwyn Collins-brand croon.
It all starts tamely enough, with the slow burning ‘Jamboree’ building to a furious crescendo. Next, ‘In Patient Flight’ kicks off with a Mumford-esque riff, finishing with a vintage flourish. Other tracks, like blippy triumph ‘Gone To Sea’, get straight to the point while stand-out track ‘Fiction’ defines the band’s deadpan bewitchery at breakneck speed. At this point I have to address the subject of Brian Molloy’s oddly fumbling vocals, which are curiously addictive and thoroughly charming throughout.
Even so, it’s the tunes without a voice that enable New Amusement to hold you in the palm of their hands. I’ll save you the adage about buying the cow, but there’s something hugely entrancing about instrumental tracks ‘Volga Tattered Steps’ and ‘An Edge Over Water’. Sweeping and spooky, both tracks bear a restrained elegance – a happy tease for the busier tunes that follow.
That said, My Captain is far from a perfect record. I could have done without a handful of tracks from the second half of the album and at 50 minutes long, it’s hugely repetitive.
But just as I find myself wishing for another instrumental mini-epic to break up the monotony, ‘Headboard’ comes along, dressed as a Joy Division ballad and brandishing lyrics like “Hold the world in your arms… when the dawn entangles the night sky.” It’s not a New Romantic throwback: rather, My Captain is an album brimming with romance.
Key Track: ‘Fiction’