The 1975: The 1975 (album review)



An old album, but I really wanted to dissect this album, get an eye into it's soul, so here goes
Building on word of mouth buzz created by a handful of Eps and some remarkably strong singles, The 1975 are the next hot indie band to come straight outta Manchester. Their sound is hard to pin down exactly, taking in a mixture of synths, guitars that are angular yet never oppressively a slightly seedy, swaggering rock and roll feel familiar to fans of Oasis or The Arctic Monkeys. Despite their name being The 1975, this band is definitely one who worship the 80’s, leaning on both the sophisticated pop rock that charted in those days but with an experimental side. The most obvious comparison point for this band is Duran Duran, both sonically and in their shared desire to mix accessible pop rock with a sophisticated, artsy touch, or even Simple Minds, the band who did The Breakfast Club’s closing song So what am I to make of this? Does it live up to the hype?
Well first of all, it is an impeccably constructed album. The intro and two interludes (An Encounter and 12), provide welcome breaks from the music, helping all the tracks flow into each other. They’re floaty, shimmering numbers showing the more sophisticated side of the band. The main singles released off the EPs make appearances here, which is nice as they are the strongest tracks on the album. Sex packs a sparkly guitar riff and soaring chorus, being the most rock leaning song on the album. Chocolate is the jaunty, bouncy, inescapable summer anthem you’ve surely heard on the radio by this point. The first proper song here, The City features an uncharacteristic pounding drum sound and thickly distorted bassy synth with twinkling guitars The rest of the album dallies with a mixture of hazy electronica and upbeat, Simple Minds-esque synth rock, this juxtaposition of the artsy and the brazenly anthemic creating an interesting, quite compelling sound. The choruses are huge, the hooks are huge, it’s an album full of songs both built for radio and for festivals.
However the album isn’t a perfect one. The middle of the albums tends to meander slightly, with a number of quite similar, jaunty without capturing the effervescence of Chocolate, not leaning especially hard on either side of their sound, just straight up standard issue 1975 songs. As songs on their own they stand out fine, the likes of Girls and Robbers being quite earworm worthy, yet ultimately forgettable. The constructed nature of their sound and this album, while praiseworthy and what gives them their charm, also sits rather uneasily with me. There’s little in the way of genuine grit or danger, the instrumentals being tasteful yet still just pretty filler. Mattie Healy’s lyrics suggest edginess and sensuality, yet it’s not quite there. It’s a bewitching record, but one that feels less like an organic band with heart and soul and more like one attempting to unite the hipsters and the pop radio crowd. It both dallies and shies away from darkness. It sits within the indie camp yet also seeks to dominate the world, more in a recreation of the past in a modern setting than carving out their own niche. If you go in with that in mind you will surely love this album. However as an indie album, it doesn’t quite work for me.
6/10

 Standout Tracks: The City, Sex, Chocolate

For Fans Of: HAIM, Simple Minds, Bastille

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