Dark On Fire

The fourth album from Turin Brakes sees the South London duo of Olly Knights and Gale Paridjanian dispense with the acoustic quietist tag, employ producer Ethan Johns (son of legendary Stones and Eagles knob twiddler Glyn, and midwife to Kings Of Leon, Ryan Adams, Rufus and Emmylou among others) and produce and album that is a revelatory foray into fiery electric hardcore scuzzpunk with a dash of fractious blues and technicolour psychedelia.
Actually, I’m fibbing about the last bit. Truth be told, Dark On Fire, despite the exemplary production and stunning cover design, sounds like a slightly less flaccid Starsailor.
The old gods are dead, friends. Once we genuflected before shrines built to Plant and Johansen and Rotten and Morrissey and Jarvis. Now we venerate anonymously modest mice with squeaky boy soprano (and in some cases, castrato) voices. Once we attempted to unravel the sonic mysteries spun by Page and Richards and Steve Jones and Tom Verlaine, now we make do with endless Edge copyists and floppy-fringed blokes plonking on pianos. This, brothers and sisters, is where rock ‘n’ roll’s evolutionary cycle ends: in the cul de sac where Keane and Maroon 5 have pitched their semi-detached mansions.
This is not all Turin Brakes’s fault of course, but is there anyone among us who will 'fess up to ordering another dozen immaculately-recorded tunes with earnest lyrics, dampened down drums, polite keyboards and sub-Floydian guitar solos? And just in case you thought you needed one more plodding mid-paced 4/4 slurpy ballad of the kind purveyed by Snow Patrol and Embrace, there’s another one here called ‘Something In My Eye’.
Elsewhere, the title tune seems to try for Arthur Lee paranoia via ‘Street Spirit’ but comes off like Richard Ashcroft, while songs like ‘Last Chance’, ‘Other Side’ and ‘Here Comes The Moon’ are polite to the point of being offensive.
Maybe Angry Anderson was right all along. Nice boys don’t play rock ‘n’ roll.