To date, The Maccabees’ story has been one of critical embrace and commercial cold-shoulder. However, as with so many great tales, this third act may deliver a joyful resolution and the widespread acclaim that’s previously eluded the Londoners. Given To The Wild certainly deserves to be heard.
There are contemporary resonances aplenty, the careful framing of sounds on ‘Glimmer’ suggesting Wild Beasts, the rhythmic dynamism of ‘Unknow’ conjuring Foals, ‘Heave’ a dead ringer for Coldplay. What’s more, The Maccabees know their indie heritage. The styles of ‘80s icons – be it the chiming guitars of Felt (‘Feel To Follow’), or the silken gorgeousness of Cocteau Twins (‘Slowly One’) – are here remade in their own image. Altogether, these are more intriguing sounds than the quintet have treated us to before. Often the tempo is slowed to a contemplative crawl, time melting away like the clock faces in Dali’s ‘Persistence Of Memory’, singer Orlando Weeks delivering his words in a sedated croon.
Lyrically, Weeks continues his pained rites of passage. The mood is one of weary fatalism, Orlando given himself up to the fact that – from cradle to the grave – we’re all just an infinitesimal part of the infinite cycle. As the Vampire Weekend-evoking ‘Pelican’ puts it with poetic bluntness, “We go back to where we came from / Like those before and those to come”. At least The Maccabees can console themselves with the knowledge that they’ve fully seized their moment.