Meeting Of Important People : 'Meeting of Important People'
Released: Out Now!!!
Label: Authentik Artists
This is a very depressing time of year. A eunuch beat a man with a bucket for a chin in Karaoke and has subsequently released a song about mountain climbing. A ten pound Next voucher awaits me under a tree which I will receive after I have endured a tense, overcooked meal interspersed with awkward questions about the validity of my lifestyle. Thank God then for a litre of Gordon's for £12 and Meeting of Important People's new LP, the two things that might just save me from a tinsel noose.
Meeting of Important People hail from Pittsburgh in the good old US of A but to listen to them they might of well have come from the UK 15 years ago. They've taken a few cues from Britpop to add to a distinctly American slacker sound and the result is Pittpop, or what would happen if Weezer and Belle & Sebastian were fused together due to some sort of nuclear accident.
It's a record stuffed with gorgeous, subtle and witty pop songs with a slightly rocky edge to give a bit of added bite.
Opener "Britney Lane" Don't Care sets the tone for an album of pure delight, a sprightly bop with a chorus to be sung in a full Vauxhall Corsa on a roadtrip for a weekend camping in Dorset. This is followed by "Hanky Church" which joins Sukie in the Graveyard with Cemetery Gates in the canon of terrific songs to reference graveyards. “We are having a good time/running through the cemetery/ We hopped on a grave and we flipped it/ with the caretaker's digging equipment" is just one of the shining examples of Meeting of Important People's sublimely crafted lyricism which is always perfectly balanced with understated instrumentals and honeyed harmonies. Next song is "List-Show", a delicious little dig at two-way cultural ambivalence. Driven with insistent riffs and rhythms it pulls you back from the passive listen when you put your iPod on shuffle and puts your focus on more lyrical showmanship "We're all in a List-Show/ It's a lot of fun/ We all wear a dick splint/ Yeah we wear it 'til it's done". "One O'Clock" is all about using the future as an excuse for procrastination, putting things off because you're waiting for something else to happen first, epitomised in the chorus "There's a time for it/But it's not now". It's a wonderfully lush sounding track, with a soft piano playing chord sequences that falter at the very last moment and bursts of defiance undermined by a sound tinged with melancholia. This folks, is pop with with a PhD.
The album never once drops it's satisfying, Ready Brek warming feeling where each track offers something to plaster a big, stupid grin all over your face. "Dead Man" is an instinctive, instant sing-along which goes in to the tender "I Know Every Street" where the album approaches it's most conventional love song formula but keeps enough of the wit and under-produced sound to keep it from turning to over-ripe mush. "Mothers Pay More" is another delicately woven tapestry of harmonies with some punchy Mexicana underneath it all, a bit like Beach Boys and Fleet Foxes vs. Cake. Even the "Pretzel Rod Blues (Riff Song)" pleases, despite the fact it's an instrumental, which in my experience are usually instantly skipped filler. It's a chance for the band to show of their very capable talents and variety of influences, which make Meeting of Important People so bloody brilliant. Even the most exceptional albums tend to peter out towards the end but it seems Meeting of Important People decided to keep the best for last. "Down in the Hollow" is a lilting folky-summer song of childhood lost which is simply fucking gorgeous. Then the whole thing ends with a bang with "Nothing's Going On", a constant, foot-stomping cadence which is wonderfully and unashamedly indie with a firm nod towards The Velvet Underground.
I can honestly say a band hasn't make me feel this good in a long time, and will provide essential respite through the next few weeks of family orientated tedium and beyond. It's a wonderful, wonderful album that's crafted with buckets of intelligence and flair that doesn't force itself down your throat because it remembers the simple rules of great pop; to be enjoyable and fun. Looks like it will be a Merry Christmas after all, as long as I keep slinging back those G&Ts. Cheers.
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