I’m a groove guy, so it was hard not to be disappointed by the grooveless opener on this record. There’s more than one way to make good music, I told myself, try to enjoy it anyway. I count along to the shifting time signature. I pay attention to the lyrics.
The second track confounded my newly-adjusted expectations with a straight rock’n’roll guitar riff and excellent bass, which almost had me shaking my ass — I’d have enjoyed it more if I weren’t preoccupied dissecting the lyrics, which weren’t as clever as I’d hoped but certainly contained enough literary references to qualify as nerdy. (I like nerds. Some of my best friends are nerds. I experimented with being a nerd myself in college). Perhaps this is “the single,” sonically accessible and lyrically dumbed down for a wide audience? Sure enough, the third track Broken Biscuit’s quintuplet piano riff wasn’t very groovy at all. As I dutifully counted along, the wordplay-ridden lyric cleverly snuck some social commentary on me and I started to seriously admire the songwriting. Track Four, “I’m not crying, you’re crying” is my favourite, the Johnny Marr guitars grooving their ass off under another playful vocal that throws rhythm around like Tom Cruise mixing a drink in the 80s.
By now I’d given up guessing what to expect, which is my favourite state to be in as a listener. The album had peaked already, but it remained enjoyable to the end. On a later highlight, R&B, the singer Lily Fontaine directly addresses listeners like me who can’t help imposing our expectations on her work. “Despite appearances, I don’t have the voice for R&B” — I suppose we’re more accustomed to our nerds as white boys; cerebral, literary music is not what we immediately expect from a woman of colour. I understand that the point of this track, which deliberately starts out with groove-heavy drums and growly P-bass, is that she rebels and breaks free from those genre restrictions, but I can’t help enjoying the first half unironically. What can I say, I’m just a simple soul who would rather be listening to Ray Charles.
Maybe if racial expectations didn’t weigh so heavily on them, they wouldn’t have rejected groove on so many of these tracks. Or maybe they would, it’s a valid artistic choice. They proved they can groove when they want, and there’s no question that this is a good record, regardless.
8/10
