The Big Pink : 'A Brief History of Love'
Released: 14th September 2009
Label: 4AD
Is it unfair to say that there is, potentially, quite a lot resting on this debut long player from The Big Pink? I don’t think so as when one looks over the hype surrounding them this past year, they have been talked up consistently month in, month out for a long time now. Get it right and people will be saying that they always knew a band of such calibre could never have really put a foot wrong. Get it wrong, however, and they are likely to be slated for the chancers everyone always knew they were. How does a band win in such an unfavourable situation? Well, I guess they do so by writing “A Brief History Of Love”, mainly because it is, realistically, fucking great.
Opening with the delicate swirling of guitars, ‘Crystal Visions’ slowly and subtly builds into a crescendo of noise, which dies in a hiss of distortion and reverb before next track ‘Too Young To Love’, which is a wonderfully droning piece of indie leading nicely into new single, ‘Dominoes.' The first real standout moment of the album comes right here in the format of an almost perfectly orchestrated example of the future of guitar based indie rock. A chorus that will jar itself into you subconscious for days and never once annoy you sits inbetween verses which, wonderfully, are almost as appealing as the chorus itself (a chorus I think may go on to be one of my favourite of the year). Yes, ‘Dominoes’ deserves to do well as their next single.
After the opening salvo, we get a breather in the shape of ‘Love In Vain' which is a swirling, melodic piece that reminds me of a relevant Verve and something else I cannot quite put my finger on. Needless to say, you will welcome its deep embrace after the visceral rush faced so far on this record. ‘At War With The Sun’ comes across as the previous tracks more upbeat brother with a sunnier, more melodic disposition.
Old single ‘Velvet’ is our next piece and is the most electronic thing on this album so far. Here they bring in clicking drums and droning synth stabs, before the melancholic verse slides in across the top and the track gradually begins to grow underneath, pushing the mood up before we are dropped into a dense wall of guitars in between verses. And once more we are treated to a rising cacophony of distortion which drops away to gentle vocals and crashes back in for the close. 'Golden Pendulum' strikes me as being the perfect suffix for ‘Velvet’s distorted melancholy.
‘Frisk' picks the pace and mood up again with lots of effects and sounds, almost sounding like something from Amnesiac-era Radiohead in places, but predominantly marking itself as another solid track from this duo. The title track is a beautiful piece that I’m almost certain is what Pink Floyd would be writing, were they still an active vehicle with the same innovation they had in the Seventies. A downbeat and calming piece of which delights as much as it takes you down once more. Closing the album out are ‘Tonight’ which is more in the vein of ‘Dominoes’, though a simpler and more upbeat piece, great in its own right though not quite up to the brilliance of ‘Dominoes’ and ‘Count Backwards From ten’ really does close things out in bombastically moody fashion, with big, slow, solid drum beats and melodic guitars which build, dirge-like, as the song progresses and grows before the whole record closes on a single, held, note.
2009 has then, I think, been somewhat stolen by The Big Pink, and they deserve it all.
Words: James Hoste
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