Gomez - Split theDifference

Sun 6th Jun, 2004 in Music Reviews

There is nothing more pure than the exhilaration of rock riff as it shoots through your nervous system, pulses down the spine, awakens the imagination, motivates primal impulses. Rock music, in its myriad of guises, in one sense is about release but equally about capturing and harnessing this emotive phenomenon in another. Gomez in their fourth album Split The Difference, have stumbled onto a formula that, at least for the moment, has managed to provide power to this phenomenon, allowing it to surge throughout the recording.

Completely loaded, soundly structured, and multifaceted the whole album is unifying in its diversity of influence, mood and colour. From the edge-rock brevity of the opening track Do One with its breathy vocals and punch, to the laconic warm stylings of Catch Me Up that fizzes with a sixties radio feel, tepid slide guitar and the resonance of images such as shooting down the moon for romance.

There is still some of the old experimental Gomez here also, perhaps best embodied in We Don’t Know Where We’re Going. The track opens with lightly plunking piano slipping over a minor as an acoustic guitar gets overdriven by a pounding beat. The track captures the delicate and the strong, anarchistic yet structured, a fatal blow to the dichotomies that we so easily fall into with labels of music. At times the vocals sound so close to Cobain you are filled with a glimmer of hope and fear. The darkness is present in the music, not as heavily as it was with Cobain, but in the background sense that often occurs in country towns when people know that their struggle will continue tomorrow, without an easy end.

And this perhaps is this albums greatest strength, its simplicity is in not attempting to reinvent the wheel, but using it to travel to the next vantage from which to gaze romantically upon what is next, or left, or what will never be. The only critical point is that the album tends to run down a little towards the end, slowing in pace (both bonus tracks are somewhat evenly paced as a conclusion). It is without doubt a conscious decision on behalf of the band to move from the overstated to the more contemplative. It does leave a melancholy taste on the tongue. But when the early bits of the album are so diverse it doesn’t seem to really matter that the album fades. It is as a gentle refrain that leaves time for thought, time to allow feeling to emerge.

This is music that invokes every sense. The best tasting of the offerings is Me, You and Everybody. While the brit-pop elements are still present in this track, as with most of the album, they are less pronounced, effective in their subtlety. The folky acoustic guitar paints earthy colours, pretty but dusty dirt daises, shining like the lead line as it skips across to the chorus. It is in the vein of the great songwriters, Lennon, Dylan, Garcia. The art of these great figures is the effortless way with which they display their pain, their heart, their intellect. The gentle poetry of lyrical honesty and complimentary generation of sound. Gomez add to this the juxtaposition of musical magnetism with inspired simplicity and sadness. The space becomes as important as the sound

“I’ve got a hopeless memory,

But you’ll remember me,

Do not waste your sympathy,

It all comes down to me

And You and Everybody.”

Simply music as emotion. Gentle influences of laid back country, sprinklings of electronic sounds, allusions to Britains deep pop and punk traditions, and enough rock to keep the pelvis happy. So how do you end a review on an album you’re simply privileged to listen to?

“I’ve got a timeless melody,

Arising out of me,

Do not waste your energy

It all runs off of me

And You and Everybody…”