A British Band Who Plays Soulfull American Sounds & Explore - Love - & - The Beach boys - Legacy.

By now, the beaches of Sunderland, England, must be redolent with post-punk herky-jerky. To be sure, native sons Field Music have much in common with the Mackems that came before-- not least their members, who include one former Futurehead plus a current Maxïmo Park drummer-- but rather than assail us with angularity, the region's latest exports aptly prefer prettiness. Indeed, "You're So Pretty", their 12-song, 38-minute debut's art-pop finale, is the album's best track, and also its buzzing, ornamented, just-too-brief-enough synecdoche. That song, like the album's other epiphanies, is a sparkling construct of whirring guitars, eccentric percussion, windmill-tilting bass, and Andrew Moore's piano embellishments. Dual lead vocalists Peter and David Brewis swap quixotic, often-falsetto harmonies as indebted to Pet Sounds as to "Hounds of Love". The lyrics tend toward the commonplace, which if not beside the point pretty much is the point: "You're so pretty/ I could talk to you all night", chime the Brothers Brewis, their sweet-nothings granted the wings of soaring melody.

Second single "You Can Decide" is the band's most immediately compelling track, with copious oohing, spastic handclaps, and eloquently stuttering chorus: "So if you know, you know, you know/ Let me." "Got to Write a Letter" benefits from slippery acoustic guitars and fairly sharp wordplay, though none as adroit as "I've given up thinking" from the album's rare sad song, the still-sun-dappled "Like When You Meet Someone Else". Opener "If Only the Moon Were Up" introduces a smattering of Revolver horn oompahs and GeoHa guitarisms ca. Abbey Road. I still say stupendous first single "Shorter Shorter" was, true to its name, the latter album's flip-side shortened, haunted and harried by imminent mortality. Meanwhile, the band's self-consciously complex, maximalist arrangements and Sparks- or even Yes-like vocal heights call up that suddenly-not-dirty (if prefixed with "hyper") word: prog. I'm just saying. After their first two singles, it's hard not to be let down by good-enoughs like the ambitious, briefly cacophonous "Tell Me Keep Me", string-laden "Luck Is a Fine Thing", and staccato, saxophone-blearing "17". More ephemeral than Clor, more cerebral than the Rakes, Field Music has, like the Magic Numbers, fashioned a distinctive voice and near-perfect arrangements, but the songs hint at greatness nearly as often as they achieve it. Pretty is pretty nice, but the promise of true beauty makes tough critics of us all. (Review By Pitchfork media)

That Man Has Got Nothing To Do With This Post.



"JANNNNGGGG!" Mmm, how Beatlesy. Or, if you're looking to be slightly more precise, how very 'A Hard Day's Night'y the opening chord of the opening salvo from the brothers Brewls and chums is. Still, what with them being leading lights-in-waiting of the whole new mainstream-swallowing indie revolution it's probably about time someone out of that gang so blatantly referenced the Fabs. But while Britpop first time round was excessively Lennon-lionising, Field Music have decided it's about time proper due got given to Sir Thumbsaloft instead. Correct!

Why, even Paul McCartney himself hasn't made an album this McCartneyish for some twenty-odd years now. Not only does the whole B-side, if we may be so vinyl-vaunting in our consideration, consist of tracks running into one another a la 'Abbey Road', but there are numerous Macca traits abounding herein. Often – see 'Pieces' or '17' – it's sufficiently melodic to make Hal sound like Einsturzende Neubauten. Given that it's bookended by 'If Only The Moon Were Up' and 'You're So Pretty', it'd be fair to say that, at times, it's sentimental as anything. And, even though it's not always the most out'n'out cheerful album of the year – the not-split-accepting rigours of 'Like When You Meet Someone Else' are particularly poignant – it still sounds relentlessly euphoric throughout, what with all the swoonsome piano, regal string arrangements and guitars probably piped in from the nearest Lear Jet. Why, to quote a lyric they're doubtless very fond of, there is no end to what they can do together.

All of which would count for, well, not nothing, but certainly not enough if Field Music didn't have a little imagination in their own right. Yet they do; there are continual instances of the kind of sculptured improv sparkling that the Betas and the Boos made their own, and Peter's lovely singing voice comes, as should be a delight to lovers of the Futureheads and Maximo Park – anyone with ears, in other words – with a deliciously soothing north-eastern twang that grounds the band's tales of love, loss and innocent lust ('Got To Write A Letter' is endearing like people just don't do nowadays) and makes them that bit more convincing. There's the suspicion that sometimes they're coasting just a touch, or even taking the proverbial – typewriter-as-instrument, anyone? – and there are certainly moments amid this journey, like the downright disappointing 'Tell Me Keep Me', where they really don't soar like they should. No matter on the whole, though; they've made some starry tracks, have Field… (Review By Playlouder)


Field Music Members.

Listen To:

1."You Can Decide"

2."Tell Me Keep Me"

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