You Need Arms

Brakspear hangover. New Fall LP on fat double vinyl. Planning tonight's gig. Oddly pleasant Saturday afternoon.


THIS TOWN NEEDS GUNS – HIPPY JAM FEST (THE LIKES OF WHICH HAS NEVER BEEN SEEN BEFORE) (Big Scary Monsters)


Having spent an evening in a field with Redox, we feel we’re qualified to comment on this sort of thing: whatever they may promise, This Town Needs Guns have not recorded much of a hippy jam fest. In fact, with its elegant dynamics and controlled emotional outbursts TTNG’s music is about as far from a stoned freeform ramble as it’s possible to get, which is probably the point. We may as well get the Fell City Girl reference out of the way now. Yes, TTNG emerged at the same Battle Of The Bands, and, yes, they yank some of the same emotirock chains, but TTNG have replaced Fell City Girl’s nebula-sized progpop choruses with the sort of glacial melancholy that underpinned undertheigloo’s recent Circlesend album.

The title track opens in the middle of choppy waters courtesy of a clinically rocking guitar that oddly recalls Days Of Grace. If the seas are becalmed for some quite lovely vocals immediately after, it doesn’t take an aged seadog to tell that the storm’s brewing on the horizon again. It’s an effective chunk of wideangled pop, oscillating between serene folky lacunae and tom-thumping crescendos that actually work, lifting the emotional level of the song. Our only complaint is that the louder vocals sound like they’re snatching swiftly at the notes, like an unfit man touching his toes for a microsecond. We’ve got an excellent vocal reference point to use here, but we promised not to mention a certain band again.

“Denial Adams” just sounds like a more successful rewrite of the opener – far from being repetitive it makes a pleasing balance, and the voice sails across the sound with far more authority. It’s in the sense of brooding menace that this track succeeds, some simple strings adding a treacherous undertow to the delicate rhythms. The piano parts do tinkle slightly redundantly, and threaten to step over into Keane territory on some unpleasant occasions, but this aside the song is hugely successful.

CD bonus “Like Romeo & Juliet” – but, err, you get a free CD copy whenever you buy the 7” anyway, which is a pretty wayward marketing technique – flits by pleasantly, but pretty much sounds like offcuts from all their other songs swept form the rehearsal room floor and squeezed together like slivers of soap, and some well-controlled drum work can’t lift the song into anything very memorable. A very assured record, then, from a band that are improving in leaps and bounds, and our only major criticism is a slight feeling of bluster around the music, that feels too eager to get straight into pushing the emotional buttons. Let the songs stretch out a little, give them time to breathe, and who knows what might happen? Oh, and think of a better title next time, for God’s sake.