Good Weather For Airstrikes

I’m not sure how great I’ll be at updating this week (despite all the awesome shows I’ll have to draw material from) due to midterms/CMJ madness, so I’ll be throwing up some non-CMJ posts throughout the week to tide you guys over. Oh hey, here’s one of them.

New kids on the block Pete & The Pirates have been making a racket in Reading for a minute now and seem primed to make a significant dent in the public consciousness with upcoming single “Knots”, out on Stolen Recordings today. It’s an excellent release, succeeding on the strength of it’s boisterous immediacy, clattering instrumentation and a rawness that’s so often missing in the UK rock scene these days. The mix is cluttered and rough (in a good way like the Pixies), but the track’s all the better for it, as it’s the way in which the song’s arcing, angular central riff bursts forth from the mix at key intervals throughout that really makes the song from an instrumental perspective. Lyrically, it’s all desperate, frantic nostalgia and somber reminiscing. “Sometimes I see your face/it makes me sad,” laments frontman Tommy Sanders over the bridge, matter-of-factly with no need for pretense or artifice. Nothing here’s terribly poetic or overly-complex, but this brand of youthful guitar-rock isn’t supposed to be.

It’s nothing terribly groundbreaking, but it’s nice to see a band that’s not trying to be something they’re not. Pete & The Pirates know what they’re good at and focus their energy on doing it well. That said, this could easily be an early recording from any number of bands who’ve recently enjoyed success in the British indie rock scene. There’s the urgency and desperation of Bloc Party’s early tracks, the frantic pacing of Maximo Park and the group vocals and herky-jerky guitar style of that first Futureheads LP. Sadly, those bands have all moved onto bigger, glossier production values, so it’s refreshing to hear the style done right, in it’s rawest, purest form. It will be interesting to see if Pete & The Pirates can retain this freshness as they work towards the completion of their debut album, due in early 2008, but for now we have “Knots” to enjoy and can only hope for more of the same from the band in the future.

MP3: “Knots” - Pete & The Pirates ((highly recommended))

This entry was posted on Monday, October 15th, 2007 at 7:04 pm and is filed under Single Review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.