R O M A N C E is the hotly anticipated sophomore album from Kingston (upon-Thames) based band Tubelord. The group have become renowned for their incredibly diverse, changeable music through a number of EP releases and their debut album, Our First American Friends, which was released to critical acclaim in 2009.
Whilst the group’s music is perhaps best described of as post-rock, throughout R O M A N C E Tubelord twist and turn through an assortment of music genres, creating a complex, confusing, and sometimes frustratingly diverse variety of sounds and styles. For example, the album’s opening track, ‘Over in Brooklyn’ cites heavy American influences, mixing melodic rock, pop punk and emo to create a sound disturbingly similar to the likes of My Chemical Romance and Panic at the Disco. This quickly changes in track however to a more indie-pop vibe, with some prolific nu-prog and alternative indie elements. The track immediately becomes more feisty, quirky and interesting, but also morphs into a slightly bewildering bricolage of mixed sonic messages.
This song is a fairly accurate microcosm of the album in general, which features multiple stylistic traits. Evident as well as emo, pop-punk, prog and a variety of indie styles are synth pop, piano ballads and 80s’ power pop. Indeed, R O M A N C E as a body of work is relentlessly, almost monotonously diverse. The problem with including all these influences, however is that depending on your musical tastes and prejudices, you might find you like one moment (and one set of influences) in a song, then the next its gone, lost in a whirl of sound.
R O M A N C E examples a catalogue of instrumental timbres, mostly based around the battle of supremacy between synth parts and guitar sounds. Guitar riffs are catchy and genre specific, treading along atypically, whilst synths vary from disgusting 80s saw-waves to cute Nintendo blips, and everything in-between. Vocal styles are mixed too. Whilst the often-present lead vocals are a bit too whiney and purposefully strained, there are soft moments with attractive backing vocal harmonies. The tracks ‘Charms’ and ‘Never Washboard’ are particularly good examples of the effectiveness of this more subtle vocal style, and how it should be used much more frequently on the album.
R O M A N C E is certainly a feat of variety, but it is almost too complex to simply sit back and simply enjoy. The music is in constant competition between heart and head, rhythm and concepts, synths and guitars. The album is an enigma, and never fully settles into anything direct or autonomous.
10/10/2011
[rating:3.5]
