A Different Kind Of Fix

When you press play on Bombay Bicycle Club’s third album, you realise immediately that you’re in for something special. Duelling, tingling guitars hang in the air for what seems like an unusually long time. It’s a wonderfully engaging opening. Then a stomping beat emerges, apparently sampling Led Zeppelin’s ‘The Crunge’. From this point on it rocks.
One immediate reaction to BBC’s new material is: ‘Blimey, they sound a wee bit like The Cure here’ – the melody of opener ‘How Can You Swallow So Much Sleep’ and the the pulsing bass of ‘Lights Out, Words Gone’ alike speak of a love for Robert Smith & Co.
That’s not to say the band are merely into hero-worshipping. On the contrary: frontman Jack Steadman’s dreamy, delicate vocals are cleverly woven with rhythmic guitar lines to create a sound as gossamer-fine as spider silk and just as strong and completely their own.

BBC were originally lionised as modern carriers of the post-punk torch, but on racing torch songs like ‘Beggars’, they show conclusively how much better off they are without a tag they have consciously eschewed.
For kids who graduated from secondary school on the eve of their debut release in 2009, BBC’s sound is stunningly sophisticated. It is also essentially warm and loveable. One suspects that A Different Kind of Fix isn’t their ultimate meisterwork, but it is very good indeed.