Given that Oxford math rock outfit This Town Needs Guns are best known in Ireland through their label’s association with the sadly disbanded Richter Collective, you’d be forgiven for misplacing their sound in ferocious reverb territory. On the contrary, this multi-faceted cult trio specialise in inventive and sweetly melodic guitar music, epitomised on ‘Cat Fantastic’, the rhythmically complex but inherently poppy opener to second LP 13.0.0.0.0.
This review finds TTNG on Sugababes Level Three: that is, with just one member remaining from the original line-up. Since 2008 debut Animals, singer Stuart Smith and bassist Jamie Cooper have been replaced by multi-tasking front man Henry Tremain, whose light, airy vocals give the new album a more romantic, almost fairytale-esque sheen.
On 13.0.0.0.0, This Town Needs Guns prove that they are terribly good at two things, three if you count coming up with unforgettable song titles like ‘Nice riff, Clichard’. The first is making the unusual seem usual: over 40 impenetrable minutes, they mask perfectly bonkers time signatures in singalong choruses and noodley guitar lines in jaunty alt. rock melodies.
The other skill is even rarer, and involves knowing precisely when to conform and when to do whatever they damn well like. Putting tracks like ‘Pygmy Polygamy’, a trickling string interlude, and ‘13.0.0.0.0’, a delicately hummed, minute-long outro on a rock album takes guts, or at least it would if TTNG were the kind of band with anything to lose. The trio’s modest but dedicated community of fans won’t have heaped a huge amount of pressure on them for this release, and 13.0.0.0.0 is all the more enjoyable for it.
Thankfully, for all the experimental rhythmic whims TTNG indulge in on their second LP, all the musical boxes are still ticked. A sharp, accessible, laidback album with nary a weak link, even counting the odd instrumental or acoustic meandering, 13.0.0.0.0 is among British rock’s most emotionally stirring and most worthwhile trips.