The Music - Strength inNumbers

Tue 17th Jun, 2008 in Music Reviews

I wonder how an album sounds when you know nothing about the circumstances under which it was written. If the drummer smashed the guitarist in the head with a cowbell during the recording of the first single, but you never heard about it, did it happen? Does that song have more of an edge than it would have if the drummer and the guitarist had the time of their life making the tracks? We’ll just never know.

My preferred position when reviewing gigs and albums is ignorance. If I know nothing, I can be amazed. Blindsided. Cruel in my assessment even. But when presented with an album from The Music things were different. Not least because I had just gotten off the phone with the lead singer and we had frankly discussed drug abuse, spiraling depression and the band’s near demise. So now I know about the cowbell-in-the-head. Elephant in the room. Whatever.

What I knew about The Music before this could be counted on two fingers – The People. You Might As Well Try To Fuck Me. Tracks released when The Music were on top of the world, before they reached the murky depths.

The opener (and title track) to their sophomore offering Strength In Numbers lets you know you have come to the right place. Their signature sound—that is, Rob Harvey’s incomparable vocals—embraces dirty, punchy guitars, and pseudo-drum machine (that’s my tag for real human drummers who sound too fast to be real). A classic The Music track but a bit more industrial and frantic: one that is already doing the airplay rounds in Australia. The distinctive production and experience of Mark ‘Flood’ Ellis (Nine Inch Nails, Depeche Mode and Smashing Pumpkins) is rooted here and promised throughout.

The Spike is the perfect sound track for when you’re screaming through the city at night in a fast car. By the time the chorus hits you are just pushing into a warehouse club where the band are totally launching. Bass driven with a breathy vocal—almost as though Rob’s been filtered through a megaphone from some great height. A taste of – œstadium’ that’s revisited on Fire; a boxing-clever, epic song that sees Rob, Adam Nutter (lead guitar), Stuart Coleman (bass) guitar and Phil Jordan (drums) giving it everything. Fast and inspired. Uplifting.

Drugs could be dark, brooding and haunting but the vocals are so clear and pristine that they hover over, looking into deep dark waters with churning, rippling complexities: beautifully mixed. – œHow can I fly if you won’t give me wings?’ a baffled Rob sings, almost New Romantically. It seems to me to be spoken in the paranoid inner monologue of a dope head. Which in all reality isn’t too far from the truth.

Fractured fairytale opener from The Left Side gives way to disembodied vocals and a rotating guitar melody while Get Through It makes me question the line between rock and roll and driving electronica entirely.

Vision features the album’s most unadorned vocals as close to Rob’s speaking voice as you’ll hear on this record as he recites the lyrics “Without you I’m a broken man/Wash the evidence from my hands.” Another example of how The Music have been able to address demons and talk about them while providing a constant movement in the sound track; a sound that promotes perpetually moving forward; striving.

The Last One had me cursing that my promo copy only has a simple track list sheet—not the actual cover art and liner notes that would accompany your record. I would love to know who is playing what instruments here as I imagine I’m hearing keys and sounds that rock bands don’t make. Still maintaining classic The Music pace, whereas No Weapon Sharper Than Will seems gentler. It’s more easily recognised as a rock song: still edgy but considered lyrics, a depth more heartfelt.

They’re still running towards the end with Cold Blooded, but they’ve assumed more a canter than a flat out pace. It sets up the finale well though and brings the heart rate down a notch.

The record gracefully departs like a floating eagle out with Inconceivable Odds . It’s a beautifully bare acoustic departure centered on a soaring vocals and strings. A sublime ending to a fast paced and driving record that, hopefully, not only fans will appreciate.