Olly Knights and Gale Paridjanian decided two years ago that the laidback slo-fi sound for which they had won our acclaim (at the height of our love affair with folky acoustica) had become restrictive, and so Ether Song was to be their harder-edged departure. With their latest, Jack In The Box, we have a mélange of those good intentions and the usual wavering West Coast falsettos.
‘Red Moon’ is one of the better embodiments of this, as melodic and pretty as can be expected, while being bolstered by decent drum and bass. ‘Above The Clouds’ is an elegant love song, and there are a couple of interesting turns, like the Air-influenced ‘Come And Go’.
The trick here is to enjoy the mellow and well-executed guitar but try to avoid the lyrics. While we all agree that we like our music with a flavour of misery and self-indulgence, it needs to be totally solipsistic over-the-top tearing-your-hair-out stuff for us to really feel sated. In keeping with their introspective, vaguely sad profile, Turin Brakes proffer the morsel that is ‘Road To Nowhere’, an unfortunately unconvincing song that has the cheek to wail “everyone seems to be dying or curling up in pain” in such an anodyne way that you might find yourself muttering at the stereo “Pain? You don’t know the meaning of pain.”
The CD’s packaging is a delight: obligatory Turin Brakes butterflies abound, and the little brown board cover flips open rather neatly to reveal some band photos, over-exposed, faux-arty portraits of warm evenings and meaningful stares that say more about the band’s music than was probably intended. Beguiling if a little anaemic.