"Movements"
With Metronomy and Klaxons moving into other areas, LCD Soundsystem out of action and Holy Ghost! (LCD’s rightful successors) making a hash of it on last year’s Dynamics, the time is right for We Have Band to fill in the kinda punky, kinda electro, moody 80’s pop thing gap, albeit on a much smaller scale. With this in mind, having DFA label boss Tim Goldsworthy to co-produce is a canny move, one that results in Darren Bancroft, Thomas Wegg-Prosser and Dede Wegg-Prosser recording their most focused album to date.
Although there’s nothing here as all out commercial as “Divisive” or as enticingly soppy as “What’s Mind, What’s Yours”, Movements is rich in sullen indie disco. Opener “Modulate” and “You Only” are propulsive and tense, while “No More Time” is given a harder edge with slicing post-punk guitar riffs to counteract the soaring warmth of the chorus.
We Have Band discovered pretty quickly that the jaunty ‘new rave’ aspects of their earlier sound, shown on tracks such as “You Came Out”, were something that was going to ghettoise them into a genre they have way too much depth to be stuck in. This resulted in Ternion over-compensating by being overly despondent - Movements, however, has them re-dressing the balance.
Lead track “Someone” is the highlight here; piano led and dizzily romantic, it has all three members harmonising to great effect, it’s an epic made on a shoestring which gives it a welcoming rustic charm and highlights Bancroft’s falsetto. Even when the songs aren’t that strong, like on the attempted Depeche Mode electro doom of “Please”, he manages to carry the track with his inviting velvety croon where other vocalists would falter.
Alongside the odd tinge of R&B, shuffling beats, analogue synths and the right amount of bleeps, there’s still an element of being informed by dance floors at 3am. “Burning On My Lips” and “Save Myself” are both 130bpm, jittery electro tracks which nod back to their earlier material and show that when they choose to, they can wig out just as hard as they could before. What they couldn’t manage in the past is having enough discipline to put their disparate influences together and make a consistent album. However, on Movements, those days are over.
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