++ALBUM++ review by Steven Belfrage
Steven Belfrage reckons the latest album from Electrelane is a return to form...
Electrelane return to a more traditional songwriting style with their fourth album ‘No Shouts, No Calls’, to inspiring results. Their last record ‘Axes’ was a mixed bag, captured in one live session by Steve Albini, it reached the genius heights of a blinding punk-rock take on 1943 French Resistance song ‘The Partisan’, to the depths of simply too many ideas and fancy piano. On the evidence of this new album, 2007 restores the vulnerable, avante-twee richness of 2004’s ‘The Power Out’, or more precisely for the best of it, the track ‘Birds’.
"Delay pedal drums and girly chants, it represents the side of the band that will never truly surrender to individual song comfort. "
“You said you don’t know what love means anymore, since I found you, I’m tearing down the walls without you” cries Verity on track one, the beautiful ‘The Greater Times’. Disturbingly, Verity’s voice could be described as childlike, warm and innocent, but at times she also has the knack of switching to the incoherent ramblings of a heroin addict.
‘To the East’ follows in the same delicate vein, sad but warm guitars moulded over their signature simplistic machine rhythm. The rather Krautrock ‘Tram 21’ offers us perhaps the first obvious “we recorded this in Berlin” shout-out, but to be honest, wouldn’t sound out of place on any Electrelane record. Delay pedal drums and girly chants, it represents the side of the band that will never truly surrender to individual song comfort. The whole bleakness, and sense of distance and exile on the entire recording could also be attributed to the effects of the German capital, but I can imagine it was simply cheaper to record there! Eat that Bowie!
Although never quite straying into the experimentation of ‘Axes’ or to a lesser extent, their debut ‘Rock It To The Moon’, the latter half of the disc treks off into curious directions of nursery rhyme rock (‘At Sea’), more piano overdoses (‘The Lighthouse’) and riverside banjo parties (‘Cut and Run’). Hell, ‘Between the Wolf and the Door’ even pisses blood to the theme of Slayer and Minor Threat, but in a distinctive Electrelane way and never a full reinvention.
It’s weird that in this country Electrelane have been the target of artistic criticism and plain bitchiness, as they have never compromised their sound in favour of the elements that at a push could make them a lot bigger. ‘No Shouts, No Calls’ is no different, the girls have made their own record, yet the cluttered lose ends of yesteryear have been tied up and it is by far their most confident offering yet.
++ Steven Belfrage ++
Artrocker rating: 4
